like rum on a fire

Her eyes and words are so icy Oh but she b u r n s– Ellie Dowson / Special Task Force / Expert in Wandlore and Magical Residue

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“People change, Ellie. Especially when its been a couple years. I’m not going to apologize for that.” Chris made not attempt at stopping her. Letting her go right now would be the safest decision he could have made. Trying to keep her there, in close proximity, with alcohol dripping off of his breath–that was just pure idiocy.

Ellie rolled her eyes as she leaned to pick up her drink. Her veins seemed to burn fire. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to have to choose between the two things I loved more than anything? I didn’t know how to do it, but you made me believe I didn’t have to choose. Turns out I might be an idiot after all. Fuck you.”

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

He took the barb and swallowed it. The points sticking into this throat, making him wonder how he was supposed to say anything at all anymore. Chris hadn’t even realized he had been bottling anything up at all–but with Ellie there, acting like Ellie, like nothing had changed. It made him want to smash the glass in front of him.

Chris turned to look at her, and answered honestly. “There’s a difference between caring and wanting to know. Of course I still care. I’m not a heartless prick. You were the person I told everything to for years. But for some reason I really don’t want to know.”

Ellie let a laugh fall from her lips, derisive and sharp. It was astounding how quickly she could turn to steel, and she did so now. She lifted her drink to her lips, downing the dregs of it and then put it back on the bar. Her words were icy when she spoke. “And for some reason I really don’t want to sit here with a stranger.” She uncrossed her legs, pushed herself up from the stool. “Not when that stranger is you. I’m going to go and find myself a different one,” she added, hoping to sting. 

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“My life is great, Ellie,” Chris replied, wondering how the fuck he was going to leave. How he was going to manage to get out of this unscathed.

“The job is better than ever, I actually got a promotion recently. I’ve got a great flat. I’m in a relationship with a woman that I love. My mates are sure to take me out at least once a weekend. I even thought about buying a dog, but they’re a lot of work, and I wouldn’t want to subject it to any unnecessary time alone.”

He could feel his words attempting to create a distance. That was his life in a nutshell. No intimate details. No unnecessary tangents. That was his life, and he did love it. He loved every minute of it. Everything was running smoothly, and while there would always be the question of ‘What if?’, Chris was never the kind to let his real life slide because of an unknown answer.

“How’s your life, Ellie?”

Ellie let a small laugh fall from her lips as he listed off one thing after another, his reply more perfunctory than conveying any real excitement or passion. This time she couldn’t help herself, her eyes went heavenward; her head shook slightly. “Sounds like a scene straight out of Pleasantville. You must be living on the edge of your seat.”

She knew what he was trying to do; distance himself from her. She wondered for a moment if that fact had the right to piss her off as much as it did, before settling on yes. She hadn’t been some passing encounter in his life, or meaningless, yet here is was treating her as such. And she may have left, but he’d always claimed to understand why, that she had a passion to follow that took her away. Now it felt like he was punishing her for it. It was because of that that his next question made her bristle even further. She shifted in her seat, pulling herself further away from him, crossing one leg over the other defensively. “Do you even actually care to know?”

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“Who said I wanted to beat you in the first place? I think we both know I’m at least smart enough to know that trying to beat you at anything you’re good at is a dangerous game.” He felt relieved that her mouth moved away from him. That she had at least given him enough room to breathe again.

It shouldn’t feel like this. It shouldn’t so he wouldn’t let it. There was a woman he loves back home waiting for him. She wouldn’t leave him. That was never the type of person she was. The person here, sparring with him as if nothing had changed–she had left him already. And maybe Chris had been naive enough to think that it didn’t hurt anymore. They had, afterall, split as amiably as any pair could. But that didn’t mean it felt enjoyable to be the person left behind.

Chris moved his knees towards the bar, angling them away from Ellie. Drinking had been a poor decision tonight. One that he couldn’t make again, not with someone so familiar so near.

“See, therein lies your problem. You never tried hard enough because you didn’t want to beat me. Your mistake was thinking it’d piss me off you did, when what pissed me off was how much less interesting it was because you didn’t try. And think about how much more fun strip scrabble could have been for you,” she winked. “Not that winning didn’t hold its perks for me,” she added, taking a sip of her drink. 

Ellie worked hard to keep the smirk off her face when Chris shifted away from her. She was getting to him. She liked that she was getting to him. If her ego had allowed it she might have considered that he was merely being respectful to the girlfriend who was waiting at home for him, but it never crossed her mind. She at least decided not to press the issue. 

Instead she hooked her elbows back on the bar, and surveyed him. “How’s your life, Chris?”

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

There was something dangerous about the way Ellie lent in towards him, her breath tickling his ear, and his space being compromised. He remembered when something like that wasn’t just a tip she was trying to give him, but words that were meant to egg him on. To push him. Chris felt hot, and the collar seemed to tighten around his neck. What the fuck was wrong with him?

“I like talking. Talking’s fun. I can like things that I’m rubbish at.”

When she’d shifted into his space Ellie had wondered if Chris would move away - set a clear boundary - and she was pleased when he didn’t. She kept her smugness to herself, though; after all, it was her who had left, who had chosen work and walked away. But she hadn’t expected to feel the way she had when she’d walked in and seen him, hadn’t expected that burn of jealousy when he talked about the woman he shared his bed with now, hadn’t expected herself to burn either with want. But everything seemed to burn anyway. Maybe it was because she couldn’t have him. Technically, she thought to herself, but she kept that to herself too. 

“See, this is why you couldn’t ever beat me at anything,” she laughed instead, and though she shifted her mouth so it wasn’t at his ear anymore, she made hardly any effort to move out of his space. 

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“No, it bloody well isn’t, but once I started I didn’t know how to pull the boot out of my mouth.” There were few things he enjoyed less than openly talking about Isabelle with Ellie. It simply felt wrong. They were so drastically different that speaking about one to the other felt like crossing two dimensions. Ellie’s world, however, felt further away from his own. Distant memories in a space that seemed made up. Right in that moment though, he felt as if he had been transported back, and suddenly Isabelle was that distant memory. That far off place.

Chris laughed. “Of course I listened. It’s always fascinating to hear what people are passionate about, and that was always your passion. Still is. I don’t understand it as much as you do, but I understand it enough to understand why you love it.”

“I have a tip for you on that front,” Ellie said, leaning into Christian’s space conspiratorially, her words a sly whisper against his ear. “Just stop talking. Can’t fit a boot in there if your mouth is closed.” She sat back so that she was leaning once again against the back of her chair, pausing halfway to quirk an eyebrow at Chris. “If you understood it as much as I did there’d be a rather big problem,” she laughed. 

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“That’s because both of you–well, you’re different sorts of people. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. You’re just more, er,” Chris paused, trying to figure out how the hell to get himself out of this predicament where suddenly he himself had forced the issue of comparing the two women. Something he had done far too often in these last few years, almost unconsciously. But saying it to either one of their faces? That seemed like a line he would be wise not to cross.

“You’re very assertive, and Iz prefers to take the more passive approach to things. Neither is wrong, they’re just, you know, personality traits. Just like the wands you love so much. Every core is different, every wood is different. The combination between both things results into something new entirely.” His tone was light, and there was no bitterness when talking about Ellie’s passion.

Chris sipped on his drink, realizing that the longer he sat here, the more wobbly he felt. Was Ellie even right there, with her knee touching his, and her hot breath blowing in his direction? Fuck, for all he knew maybe this was just his own drunken state. It may have been easier to swallow. Nothing had prepared him for this sort of meeting, where it felt so casual it burned. All the time in the world had passed, but time couldn’t erase memories. The only thing that could do that was years of proper practice, a wand, and the intention to wipe something clean.

Chris never wanted a memory removed.

Ellie cocked her head to the side, forehead knitting together, both in surprise and question. “Is opening a discussion on the passiveness of your girlfriend and whether it’s a trait that’s wrong or right something you want to do with me?” He’d have to know she’d have strong opinions on the matter, and that she was never one to shy away from sharing when she did have an opinion (which was usually). Passiveness wasn’t something she could abide by, or stand. Where Chris seemed to see  just another personality trait, she saw laziness. If you were passive about something, did you deserve to have it? 

She held his gaze, and then dropped it with a shrug. Her fingertip traced the rim of her glass before she lifted her eyes back to his. “I liked that wand analogy, though. It could have been a good distraction from the original point, if it were anyone but me,” she laughed. “And now I know at least that you actually listened to me all those years.”

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“Please, you know Isabelle. She was–what, a year below us in school? You’d remember her if you met her again.” At first he was going to say that she’d like her if she met her, but Isabelle was Ellie’s opposite in many ways. Iz was quiet, self-contained, and while brilliant, not incredibly ambitious. A simple life with little chaos suited her just fine. There was also the intimidation factor. Ellie could command a room just by breathing a certain way, while Iz, well, she was easy to convince, and even easier to trample on. The two women couldn’t have been further apart, and maybe that was why Chris gravitated towards Iz after Ellie left. No one could replace Ellie Dowson. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t love anyone else.

“She’s really kind, you know? Like the sort of person who sees a cat in the tree or an old lady crossing the street, and she’ll drop whatever she’s doing and just help people. It may seem almost too fitting but she’s a Healer at St. Mungo’s now, and she works with the you know, pregnancy and delivery unit. Merlin, I’ve never seen someone, well, besides you, enjoy their job so much. It has hard days, like when they lose a baby, but you’d never know that by how she acts. She’s brilliant at keeping things under wrap and staying strong for the mothers. I dunno how she manages it. Or how she manages me.”

Ellie waved her hand in dismissal. “I wouldn’t be able to pick her out in a line-up, whether or not she was the year below us in school.” That part at least wasn’t a lie; unless someone was important to her, Ellie rarely remembered faces or names, largely because she didn’t want to. She had no reason to. 

Her expression may have been bored as she listened to Christian talk about Isabelle, but Ellie drank in every word. It struck her first and most of all that she sounded like the polar opposite of herself. She vaguely wondered if anyone had ever described her as kind. She somewhat doubted it. She was too busy and too spoilt to think much about anyone else, particularly strangers, other than in fleeting moments. But then again, she thought to herself, if you were someone she cared about, she’d go to the ends of the earth for you. It was hard to remember that for the most part however, when her negative moments were much more loud and in your face.

“She sounds lovely,” Ellie said when Chris had finally finished, barely keeping her tone on the right side of disinterested. She couldn’t help but add, “I can’t recall I ever had much trouble managing you.” The words were pointed, almost a dare. 

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“You don’t have to sit if you don’t want to, just figured that it might be more comfortable than standing.” Chris shrugged his shoulders, giving off the distinct impression that he thought it was a plenty good idea, and in his slightly sloshed around mind, there was nothing wrong with the proposition. For him there was nothing to worry about. He was a bit drunk, and maybe a bit more daring than usual, but there was still Isabelle back at home, probably waiting for him to make sure he was all right. How could he forget what he had? This, then, was innocent. A simple catching up between two people who had history with one another.

Chris smiled. “I did try the beard thing for a little while. It was Iz’s idea, not mine, mind you. Apparently I looked bloody fit at first, and then after a while I looked homeless. Can’t say I blame her when she took the razor to my face. Would’ve done it sooner myself if I wasn’t sort of partial to the way it kept my cheeks warm.”

His speech was still rather clear, and there was something extra smooth about the way he was speaking. People used to tell him that he lit up when Ellie was around, as if she was some sort of energy source that he fed into, building himself up and taking her with him. They had always had a nice rapport, and perfect timing. Well–not always perfect timing. But for a while it had been perfectly balanced. Two sides to a similar coin.

Now he just felt as if everything had slid down towards one side, until they were something but nothing. What could you even call a person you used to be in love with?

Ellie let her eyes hold his for a few moments, before hopping up into the seat. “Nice of you to still be so concerned about me,” she commented, though of course she wouldn’t have expected anything else. You couldn’t be in a relationship with someone for two years - and a whatever the hell it was before that either - and not still care somewhere when said relationship didn’t end badly. Once her drink arrived, she picked it up, tilting a head of thanks to the bartender, and swivelled her chair around so she was facing him, exposed knees barely any distance away from his. Not intentionally, she’d argue; everything was always close knit in bars, bodies tightly squashed in together, the concept of personal space extinguished. It was why she came to these places. 

“Who’s Iz?” she asked, tone laced with innocence. “Your pet cat?” It was at that moment she turned her focus to her drink, taking a well timed sip. She knew exactly who Iz was, they still had friends in common, after all, but though she had no real reason for making the comment - she’d had plenty of her own dalliances whilst she’d been away and since she’d been back - she couldn’t help herself. Was it jealousy? Perhaps a little, in her own Ellie sense of the word. She’d always had a slightly spoilt view on things around her and what she might consider was hers. There was also a part of her that wanted to see how he talked about her. This mysterious Iz she knew next to nothing about, except snippets of information she’d heard from friends. She hadn’t wanted to know much more so she’d never asked. But now? Now Chris was here in front of her, the same as before other than being a little older (which suited him, she thought), now she wanted to know. She wondered if he talked about her the same way he used to about her.  

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

“I haven’t changed that much, I can assure you. Well, I probably have changed a bit. I now have two scoops of ice cream instead of just one. It’s a fairly wild difference, I’d understand if that made me an entirely new person.” He held up his drink, tipped it towards her, and drank. Had he been smarter he would’ve stopped drinking as soon as she appeared, very much aware that have an alcohol laden mind with Ellie around was never smart. Intelligence, a word thrown around too often, was Ellie’s first and most potent weapon. Chris couldn’t claim to be an idiot either, Ellie wouldn’t have bothered with him had he been a bleeding idiot, but a loose tongue and a muffled brain meant his defenses were low.

“I think I’ve tried the mustache before, and I don’t believe it went over very well. Some people can pull it off, others, like me, are left to be clean shaven and boring.”

Chris moved the chair next to him out, silently offering for her to sit and stay if she’d like. Maybe that was just as dumb as taking another sip from his drink, or maybe that was what happened when your bones fell into comfortable company. How else could he respond? There was no ill will, no hurt feelings on his end, and he doubted very much there was any of that with Ellie, otherwise she wouldn’t have been standing there looking very much like–her. A person knew when she was upset with them, and a lot of the time Chris respected her ability to let people know where they stood with her. No guessing games, no subtle hints. If Ellie Dowson disliked you, you knew. 

“Would I really look better with a mustache?”

“Ooh, two scoops,” Ellie teased, as she leaned into the bar and raised a hand, a signal to the barman she wouldn’t have made if she hadn’t frequented this particular establishment as much as she had, both before she left the country and in the few months she had been back. She may or may not have spent a little time with him outside of the hours of service, but that was beside the point. He spotted her, sending a nod her way to let her know she’d have a drink soon. Turning her attention back to Christian and letting her eyes sweep up and down him slowly, she added, “That explains it.”

She ignored the chair he pulled out for her, for the most part, at least. She couldn’t help the eyebrow that lifted upward momentarily, smirk growing wider. Inviting your ex-girlfriend to sit when you were clearly already three sheets to the wind. Especially when that ex-girlfriend was her, in her opinion - modesty had never been her strong suit - but again, that was besides the point. 

“No, not really. Never really understood the point in moustaches. But I do think we should revisit the beard thing.” She paused, and pointed toward the pulled out seat. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

[elliedowsons]

taleoftwoindies:

After a long day at work there were few better ways to relax than a drink, or four. Christian didn’t do things halfway. All or nothing. Drinking, in that regard, became a rather dangerous way to unwind, but as long as he was responsible about it, he always fell into his own bed, with no incidents to report. That in itself was important to his long time girlfriend, Isabelle. Safety was one of her top priorities. She was quiet, and calm. Christian always liked to compare her to a calm stream. Constant. They had been together for a few years, and while at first she wasn’t a fan of his drinking habits, after a certain point in time, she had to get used to it anyway.

Which was why, five drinks in, Chris was sure he was hallucinating. Ellie coming back to London wasn’t out of the question, but for some reason the thought never occurred to him that they’d ever run into one another. London seemed bigger than that. Yet their world was much smaller than that, and working at the Ministry meant that eventually their paths would have to cross again. Any bets that it would have been tonight, as he worked his way through his sixth drink, they would have all been wrong.

Chris turned, a smile already on his face. Everything about him was loose. Alcohol had a way of doing that to people. “Shame I can’t manage the stranger part then. Would you like me to put a fake mustache on and you can try again? I know how much you hate being disappointed.”

Seeing Christian at a bar wasn’t out of the ordinary. He’d always been one for drinking; something that hadn’t prevented them getting together, despite the fact drinking wasn’t something she did. Luckily for him it wasn’t bars she had a distaste for - in fact, she frequented them a lot for someone who didn’t drink - merely the drinks. 

Still, of all the bars, in all of London- if she was a believer in fate, she might have pegged it down to that. But she wasn’t, so she put it down to a weird coincidence, but a happy one, at least for her. When she’d returned to the country about six months ago she’d wanted to get in touch, to see the person who had been such a big part of her life for so long, but she’d kept her distance. Their breakup was circumstantial, and she’d always firmly believed that if she hadn’t left to research they’d still be together. Being in the same country, then, but him with someone else; well, it hadn’t been something she’d wanted to run into dealing with. She knew herself, too, and despite what people might think of her, she didn’t particularly want to spend her life running into messes. 

But now coincidence had thrown them together. A meeting she hadn’t run to at all, but now it was here she wasn’t going to run away from it. “Except I haven’t seen you in years, and a lot can change in that amount of time. For all I know, you are a stranger. You’d have been better off questioning the handsome part. A moustache might help with that.”

[elliedowsons]

@taleoftwoindies

It was busy in the bar as was usual at this time of a night in a busy London borough but Ellie still spotted him straight away. She’d always been immediately drawn to him if she entered a room he was in, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as everyone else in the room seemed to become muted, but she was, unusually, surprised by it. After a few years apart she’d have guessed - or maybe hoped - that was a proclivity that would have faded. 

She could have turned around, and walked away. She’d heard he had a girlfriend a long while back. But it wasn’t in her nature to turn away from things, let alone walk away from them. It never had been. She couldn’t even pretend she was trying to resist as her feet walked steadily over to the bar; over to him. She stopped beside him, her patented smirk and raised eyebrow etched onto her face.

“And here I was hoping I’d meet a tall, handsome stranger tonight.”