Arjun’s father had been a cruel man. Kindness had not been a part of his vocabulary, tenderness the furthest thing from Arjun’s childhood as was possible. He had never learned how to be kind, not properly, having taken more after his father than he ever did after his mother. Still, there were parts of him that were from her as well, parts of him that were the nights she spent caressing his bruises and telling him it was going to be okay, the early mornings where she would show him the IRA member she had patched up the night before and prove that he was going to be okay. She was proof that they were all going to be okay—if she could make it out of Belfast, Arjun could make it out of anything.
That kindness was what had made him into the man he was that day, not his father, as much as Arjun believed it might have been. His mother was the one who taught him to care about others, who taught him that fighting was right if he was fighting for the right cause. Those were the parts of himself that Arjun was going to carry forward, now more than ever. People could take away his magic, but they couldn’t take away the lion’s heart.
Still, the fear that someone could come for his magic at any time was paralyzing. He was never going to be able to look at himself the same after this. None of them were. He was glad, at least, that he hadn’t been alone in the fray. Who knows what might have happened then—who knows if Arjun would have gotten into a fight he couldn’t get out of, if he would have even made it out of there. People had died that day. That was still sinking in for him. People had died and he could have been one of them. Dorothy could have been.
That thought was enough to make him want to keep holding onto her hand, but he knew better than to do that, knew that they needed to have boundaries between them if they were going to keep doing this—whatever it was. Arjun felt like they could be friends, maybe even best friends, but it always seemed like they were teetering on the edge of something more. They were always right at the precipice of saying something that they wouldn’t be able to take back.
And Arjun never said anything he couldn’t take back.
At her grateful demeanor, Arjun’s brow furrowed slightly for a moment. As if he would have left her there. Instead of saying that, however, he just inclined his head. “It’s really no problem. Besides, I get kind of lonely in my flat, anyway. I’d have hated being there all on my own.” When they arrived at his apartment, he looked a little sheepish. “A fair warning,” he said. “I’m not really a fan of the interior decorating. My manager had someone do it for me, and frankly—” He turned the key in the latch and pushed open the door to his little duplex. “It’s awful.”
The apartment was a mix of leather and metal that looked exactly how you would picture a midcentury bachelor pad to look. The silver of the metal frameworks and the dark woods and tones of the fabrics made it seem like Arjun would only ever keep the lighting at a low ambiance, instead of the bright yellow lights that he had put in because the dim bulbs had gotten too annoying. He didn’t really know how else to decorate his apartment, however, so he had just given his manager free rein as if that was any way to set up a living space. As if that was any way to set up a home.
There was something metallic in the air. It felt like a never-ending ringing, made the ground feel as solid as clouds, made Dorothy look over her shoulder every few steps. She’d avoided the first war because she was a coward. She wasn’t sure what she would do if another one were to break out. The thought terrified her - it cut to her core, like a cold wind or a steel knife. How were they to engage in a war without magic? How could they fight against an enemy that had already bested them once, simply by locking them up like cattle and draining them dry? Dorothy glanced up at Arjun. He’d fought in the first war. They didn’t speak of it much, but Dorothy knew the names of most of the survivors, having kept careful track of them from the yellow-belly of her apartment. Teach me to be brave, she thought, studying the angle of his jaw. Her gaze moved away from him to the streets ahead. “Me too.” It was all she could say in response. Her words were failing her - a strange thing for a writer to lose, but no stranger than a witch losing her magic. The world was on its side.
In the pause between them stopping at his door and him speaking, she spun a thousand stories for what lay behind the door. Dorothy didn’t consider herself a jealous person. Sometimes, she felt like her interior was salted earth, or a tangle of bramble thorns and sharp edges, a place where nothing could take root, not even jealousy. But, still, some small insecurity in the back of her mind painted a beautiful person waiting behind the door, some concerned and lovely elegance here to provide comfort that Dorothy couldn’t. She pushed the thought away, quickly, barely giving it the short life of a few seconds. Ridiculous. It hardly mattered and she knew it wasn’t true. Instead, he spoke of decorating. Her brow furrowed, and for the first time in hours, a smile began to tug at her lips. It felt partially hysteric. She tried to picture what could be behind the door, thinking of her own apartment, an eclectic mix of dying plants and comfortable rugs and too many mugs. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” she said, stepping in after him. As she glanced around, she realized, he was right.
It looked like an advertisement for expensive suits. There was nothing here to indicate that anyone lived here, let alone Arjun. She stepped further into the house, turning in a slow circle, taking it all in. The laughter started in her stomach. It bubbled up through her throat, and she let out a single giggle before her hand slapped over her mouth. She couldn’t help it. She was exhausted, terrified, reeling -- on a better day, she would have made a smart remark and let it go. But the absurdity of the day caught up with her, and she laughed, quaking in the center of his living room.
“Sorry, sorry,” she breathed, trying to get herself under control. “It’s not that bad, Arjun, I promise, it’s just. Not what I was expecting.” She looked at him, warmth flooding her chest, and she smiled, shaking her head. Another quiet laugh, and then the fit was done. “You should have had your manager call me,” she said, grasping at normalcy, aiming for the teasing tone their previous conversations carried. She moved, running her fingers delicately over the leather of the couch, her bed for the evening. Another smile appeared on her mouth, this one tender, almost affectionate, thinking of how he must have looked juxtaposed against the backdrop of decorating done by someone who didn’t know him.
Not that she knew him. She caught herself, risked a glance in his direction, trying to gauge his reaction to her. Dorothy didn’t look long. Just enough to catch a glimpse of his face, and then she was staring back at the leather underneath her hand. She wasn’t sure when this had started. This hot coiling in the space between her lungs and her stomach that flared when she saw him, this shyness, rendering her incapable of maintaining a level of cool. It’s adrenaline bonding, she thought, plucking a term from her memories, poring over books to figure out what made Quidditch teams work so well. It’ll wear off. A lie, but a comforting one. She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers clutching at the fabric of her shirt, and moved towards him.
“Where’s your kitchen? I’ll make us some tea.” She wanted to reach out again, just to place her hand on his arm, feel the fabric of his shirt, the warmth of his being, reassure herself again and again that he was okay. Her fingers reached out, but she kept her hands on her own arms. Boundaries.
