In every life there’s a war; a divide that separates them, neither willing to cross it and meet the other. Their toes curl over a precipice of their own making, but Mandy turns her back and Michael refuses to jump. They were always friends, once, before one or both of them ruins it and the other won’t bother to put the broken pieces back together. The shards scatter on the floor between them, and they look to each other, both waiting to see who makes the first move.
22 October 1776
New York is crawling with redcoats. They swarm in the streets like insects, kicking down doors and street urchins alike, caring little who they anger and less who they hurt. They feed off each other’s hatred and rage. Everyone is looking for an excuse these days, but hell will freeze over before the yankees give their occupiers reason to draw arms.
Michael sits hunched in the back corner of a pub, ale in hand. In the months since the delegates finished signing, the measly bar in Harlem Heights has earned itself a reputation. The British bastards peer over their drinks, as if staring at someone is enough to determine their true alliance, or force them to confess. No, it’s a rather tame evening in the Hog’s Head, and for that Michael is ever thankful. He’s no regular, not by any means, but when the Patriots make for themselves a hideaway in north Manhattan, curious minds will inquire. He’s only been to a handful of meetings, and even then, on the outskirts, avoiding gazes that fall on him and scream You shouldn’t be here.
But there’s no meeting tonight -- not in the formal sort, anyways. Still, Michael’s fingers drum with impatience against the edge of the table. His ale is nearly down to the dregs waiting for her, and he’s sure he’s already caught the attention of a few redcoats on account of being ‘shifty looking’. Any excuse, right? He’s seen what the watchdogs do, how they froth at the mouth at the mere thought of dragging their suspects into the streets. Michael swallows hard and stares down the bottom of his glass.
He feels her before he hears her; a shift in the air. The men, particularly the redcoats, hold themselves higher, like a string tied to their hair abruptly pulled up. They clear their throats. Lewd conversation dies. A woman has entered the pub, and Michael doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Mandy.
Honestly? He didn’t expect her to come, the way her features twisted with distaste at the mere mention of the Hog’s Head. That patriot hellhole? Michael looks up at her and sees the previous night’s scowl overlaid perfectly on her otherwise neutral expression. Mandy Brocklehurst, known Loyalist sympathiser, cutting her way through a crowd at the Hog’s Head. Michael has to give it to her, she always knew how to make an entrance.
He says nothing as she sat down, careful not to muss her skirts. Her hands, wrapped in lace, fold together neatly on the tabletop. She is waiting for him to say something, but just then, looking at her in the last of the evening light, Michael is at a loss for words. He hadn’t seen her properly the night before, shrouded in darkness and candlelight, but she looked older. He realises, with a start, that he must look the same way to her.
He can remember with such clarity their summers at thirteen and fourteen, tearing through open fields after the Brocklehurst horses; combing through the Corner library in search of answers to their grand and sweeping questions; two children never satisfied, always pining for that next rush of victory and knowledge.
The memories come quickly now: they’re fifteen, and two halves of Michael’s life become one whole. Anthony and Mandy lounge on the steps up to the Brocklehurst home, hands clasped and heads bowed in a lover’s embrace. That summer is the hottest Michael can remember, and when he jogs up to meet them they startle apart. He’s never seen Anthony look at someone with such unadulterated adoration, nor Mandy with such kindness and care. He collapses beside them, breathing heavily, and both readily include them in their conversation.
They’re sixteen, and the colonies are at war in their hearts, if not yet on paper. Michael is privy to only one of the many arguments that tear two of his closest friends apart, and it is enough to understand. Anthony’s heart beats the blue of a Patriot, Mandy bleeds British Empire Red. It is so painfully plain to see, so heartbreakingly obvious to everyone except, of course, the three of them. Michael, for once in his life, stays silent as raging fire and fierce hurricane meet in brutal, beautiful outrage. Mandy refuses to acknowledge that Anthony would do something so stupid as to join a lost cause that will only get him killed. Anthony can’t understand how she can simply sit back and do nothing, or worse, support their oppressors.
Now they’re seventeen, and three has been reduced to two. Michael glances at Mandy as she takes the empty seat across from him, but can’t bear to look much longer. Anthony has been dead a month now, and every time their eyes meet the wound is cut open anew. He knows, logically, that Mandy must be in as much pain as him; that every reminder of Anthony is one for her too; that that is the reason she won’t look him in the eye, either. He knows this, he does, but it doesn’t stop the fresh rage from boiling and staining the edges of his vision red.
Michael’s knuckles are white on the edge of the table when he finally manages to speak. “God, you must really be desperate to show your face here.” He wants to hope, for a fleeting second, that Mandy has seen the error of her ways. That she understands the choices he and Anthony have made, and has, in her own strange way, come to make them herself. The second passes, though, and he realises that it will take more than what they have already endured to change her heart.
He chooses his next words carefully. All eyes are on the strange pair now, and even in a low voice the listening ears will her what they wish. Michael’s eyes travel quickly over the scattered redcoats, all of whom have their attention drawn to the back corner table. His gaze flicks over them, just enough to count, certainly not too long to be suspicious, and finally land back on Mandy.
“Information. You said you have it.” He clears his throat. Michael has never been skilled in subtlety; that had always been Anthony’s forte. “From that, uh, book you said you read.”
It was the witching hour for recklessness now, and Anthony was caught under its spell, hastily bumping his way through crowds and stumbling into corners and rooms he had no business being in. This was the den of snakes, after all – blood purists, zealots, and enemies, protected like they were something holy, thriving on the injustices of the world. He wasn’t like Michael, who somehow managed to make a place for himself no matter where he was – and, consequently, ruin it in record time. And, even despite the festivities, the green and silver lining the walls and ceilings still haunted him, a cold reminder of where he was and who he was surrounded by.
The realization sent Anthony’s head spinning, rage coursing through his veins in equal measure with the alcohol, and he tumbled into the nearest corridor, not noticing who he’d stumbled on. A hot flash of anxiety rattled him when his eyes fixed on the girl – Mandy. His vision burned red at the sight of her, hating that he was always running into her, hating that it was she who always managed to find him when he needed her the least.
“I’m really bloody tired of meeting like this, you know,” he started, the shadow of Firewhiskey on his brain coloring his tone too dark, too angry -- too unlike himself, and yet true to form all the same. The words spilled, unbidden and uncaring, laced with venom and coated with rage. “Is it fun knowing that you’re just -- you just go around, using people, making them think that you’ll stick around, when -- Does he know, Mandy? Does he know what you think of his blood? Or is he just as dumb and blind as I was?”
Anthony knew he hadn’t been truly blind to her views -- there was a reason they’d parted ways in the first place -- but he had been innocent, and innocence was just another way of failing to see even with your eyes open.
“Just because you don’t have a heart doesn’t mean you get to go around breaking everyone else’s,” he spat out, the hushed voice incapable of sheathing the fury that lay beneath. “I didn’t know it at the time, Mands, but you broke my fucking heart. And, no, not because you’re something incredible, but because I -- fuck, I really believed in you. I believed in you to be a good person, to do the right thing, and it was a fucking lie. All of it. Any time you told me you cared was a lie, because I-I’m one of them, Mandy. One of the people you hate so much. So, go on, go hate us. Just stop playing your fucking games before someone else ends up hating you as much as I do.”
The scene is too familiar to one of the innumerable fights that led to their parting, and he can’t think of the last time he cursed so much. It’s just not him. More than this, however, the boy doesn’t want to allow all this rage to consume him, to swallow him whole. As if on cue, his feet dragged him away from her before his mind could fully comprehend everything that’s transpired between them. It's clear he had overstayed a welcome that disappeared along with the last true smiles they offered each other, replaced now by unplanned, clandestine meetings that leave them both scarred.
when: night, october 26th
where: slytherin common room
who: @mcndys
ernie stood at the punch bowl, itching at his sweater filling himself another cup. he wasn’t sure at this point how much he’d had, but it was getting hot in the slytherin common room as more and more students piled in. he’d omitted from “pre-ing” with the others in his own common room, he just didn’t drink it wasn’t that big of a deal. he’d been handed punch by, well he didn’t remember who now but it was sickeningly sweet and he wasn’t an idiot he knew it was spiked, but really who got drunk off of a spiked punch? the sweetness of whatever strange concoction of juice it was had been misleading though, ernie finding himself growing increasingly more tipsy, a little more liberal then he usually was, and when sally-anne had called him over for shots he didn’t resist, and it was fun so he did it again, and maybe a few more times before winding up back at the punch bowl.
who even still had punch bowls at parties? he couldn’t help thinking to himself, which at the moment happened to be the only coherent thought in his head. he had trouble filling up his plastic cup though, pouring punch onto his hand or missing the cup entirely. he felt someone else join him at the drinks table turning to see mandy, and god it had felt like a long time since he’d talked to her, “mandy,” he nudged, he had something to say when he nudged her but suddenly his mind was blank, he panicked, “i think the spike is punched’ he blurted, trying to play it off casually.
Sweaters for days. A chubby, fluffy white cat in your lap. Long, dark hair trailing down her back. Thigh high white socks. Nails painted a uniform blue. Strawberry chapstick and lavender candles. A pressed, pleated skirt and an ironed blazer. Dangly earrings twisted around her finger with thought. Staying up late just to see the stars. Shaky hands and a firm smile. Thinking again and again and again. Second guessing. Tucked into the fuzziest blanket, snug between her favorite people. Blue flowers. Chrysanthemum tea on a Wednesday night.
[8:30 am] The sun’s up so you’re up![8:30 am] Good luck on your exam today! You’ve got it! What a beautiful day for Mandy Brocklehurst to show the world what a brilliant witch she really is! Morag told me not to tell you, but we got a surprise for you after your exam!!! Just be back in our room after your finish!!! I love you![8:30 am] <3
Send “♀” for a HEARTBREAKING text.
[7:24 pm] I know you said it was nothing but I need you to know it still hurts.[7:24 pm] We don’t talk about it but I feel like I should let you know I can still hear you talking about it with Morag. I don’t know. Maybe it’s worse that you try to pretend like you weren’t talking about it when I walk in. [7:25 pm] It hurts because you still believe, whether or not I’m there in the room for you to pretend otherwise. [7:26 pm] It hurts because when you say you love me and I’m your best friend, you mean it in spite of my blood heritage. Like I should be grateful you decided not to see it.
hong kong: what is your earliest childhood memory?
he can’t be more than five, sitting on the floor in the family home, watching his sisters as they argue over who gets to read their newest magazine first. there’s music playing softly in the background, the old record player spinning lazily as the quiet jazz music fills the air. it’s warm in the home, his parents’ voices from the other room blending together into white noise that’s calming. a little fuzzy around the edges, like a photograph that didn’t quite develop all the way - but there’s a contentment to the atmosphere.
the mail slot opens and the usual post comes through, letters and periodicals falling onto the ground as stephen clumsily gets to his feet and tries to make it to the window to see whatever owl might’ve been by this time around - maybe the brown and white one, the one that had a white patch over it’s eyes.
he hears his mother’s footsteps into the living room, gathering the letters and still talking to his father - and then it stops. there’s a moment of quiet, just barely enough to recognize, before the room is filled with the loudest sound he’d ever heard. a man’s voice, screaming and howling and laughing - when he looks over to the source, his mother’s holding a letter with a bright red envelope, that seems to be moving on it’s own. it’s saying things about her, words that he’d never heard before.
the letter eventually rips itself to shreds and lands on the floor - by now it’s just silence in the house. rowan and quinn aren’t fighting anymore, his father isn’t speaking. it’s just silence, a sharp contrast to the sounds of a few seconds ago.
