Watchin' cigarettes

burn out

'Til all the neon gets turned out

Coming up here was still nerve wrecking. He knew that he needed to be more discreet about it, but there was really only one way to get up here without being able to apparate to the front door. He knew that Sprout was expecting him though, and he hoped that she was at least in the living room waiting for him. He didn’t think that she was going to subject him to anyone else, but what did he know? He very well could have to meet her parents now. Of course, she had already met his mother, and that had been an experience. There had been some amusement in it though, and everyone had survived. With the added bonus of pancakes. So, he didn’t think that there had been all that much of an indiscretion.

It might have knocked him down a peg as Mum’s favorite child. At least, he might be tied with Ava now. And he thought that he had still managed to be solidly above his niece for the most part. It wasn’t the end of the world though. He was sure that he could redeem himself well enough, and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. There was only so much that a baby could do wrong though, and he knew that Ava wasn’t even one yet. Next month. He would have to get her a present and stop pretending that the December birthdays in his family didn’t exist. Because he knew that Griff’s was then too. And yet, he knew that they always skipped it. They didn’t even talk about it. And he had never bothered to ask why.

His mum even sent something for Kate’s, and yet, he knew that they ignored Griff’s. December, July, and April. They were all pretty spread out. Though, his age gap between himself and his siblings was something that none of them had anticipated. He knew why he existed. He knew that they knew why he existed. And he also knew that his brother was alive, and well, and had a kid of his own now. It was messy, and it was complicated. But it was something that they lived with. Never talked about. They didn’t work through it or anything. But he thought that it was just something that they lived with. He had been born for a reason, and then that reason hadn’t existed anymore.

It was a wedge, a division, but as he grew, he was trying not to let it bother him. He was trying not to care about what it was that there was, bond wise, between his siblings, that he was left out of. He was trying not to care that Griff had a bracelet from Kate, and Kate had a ring from Griff, and they matched. They were a set. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need that type of sibling thing. He was fine. He had his friends, and he had their parents, and now he had Rosie, and it was fine. He was fine. He even got along well enough with his sister-in-law when his brother wasn’t home.

Stepping out of the fireplace that was connected to the Floo Fitz took a minute to take in the hall of the Urquart home. It was something that he didn’t think that he was ever going to get used to. He didn’t think that there was a good way to prepare for this place, you had to have been born into it, he thought, for it to be normal. The sound of footsteps coming towards him had him turning around, “Sprout, are you-“ but his words fell short when he realized that it wasn’t Rosie coming into the room at all. Instead his tone changed a little bit, and he nodded to the other young woman that lived here, the one that he had grown up knowing, just because she had been in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor. “Hey, Vie…”

@vie • 658 • fitzgerald's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[attr="class","backgmin"]

[attr="class","lyric1min"]burn out

[attr="class","lyricbgmin"]

[attr="class","lyric2min"]Had the world on a string
And then I lost everything
And that's how I wound up here

[attr="class","textbodmin"]Vie was home for the day. No work, thankfully, and she had decided against going into London to work at the clinic. Because even she needed a break, from time to time. And lately, that had been... too obvious. Losing her magic had pushed her into a work frenzy, at first. Anything to make her forget the fact that she was just a useless shell of herself. Anything . to help her feel like she could still do something. But being on desk duty was only a horrible reminder of the fact that she was a poor excuse of an Obliviator now. The only thing that truly helped put her mind at ease was working on her research project at the Madley Clinic--but even with that, she could only do so much. Projects concerning hypnotism and the human mind required a certain level of care and ethics, apparently, so a lot of that work was just theory. Still, it was her only hope, as far as being an Obliviator worked. Because if she was right, then there was a chance that memory modification could be possible for those that had lost their magic. And that was big.

But she had over worked herself. Vie could admit that, so she had taken some time away from the clinic, and she stopped taking all the extra hours at the Ministry. She needed to rest, too, and Vie had done none of that. Especially not while she had been sick. No, during that month, she had adamantly avoided anything that resembled giving in to her fever. Which was probably unwise, but it was done now, and nearly everything was back to normal... except for her magic. So Vie was trying a new approach now. She was trying to focus on the things that had remained unchanged. And, better yet, she was trying to focus on the things that had improved, despite everything else going to absolute shit. Home was still home, her family was still her family. And then there was Ivan, who... well, things between them had only gotten better. They had only grown closer, even in the month that they had both been sick, which filled Vie with some confidence. And some... happiness. She had never thought that this would happen for her. That perfect click with someone, where you could simply meet their eyes and know what they were feeling. At least, not with someone that was acceptable for her. But it had happened, and it had all brought a certain level of warmth to Vie's usual icy demeanour.

She had been in the study, reading, when she heard it. The Floo roaring to life. Her parents would still be out for some time, surely, and she didn't think that it would be Liam, even though he was, obviously, always welcome. But then... Lia had been upstairs, getting ready, for quite a while, and it all just clicked in Vie's brain. A smirk creeped its way onto her face as she stood up from the armchair and made her way over the the great room, leaning against the wall just at the end of the foyer as her eyes fell on someone she only somewhat recognized. Because Vie hadn't really seen much of Fitz Yaxley since his second year, when they had played Quidditch together and he had made the childish mistake of calling her Genevieve. But it couldn't be anyone else. "Sprout? That's cute," she replied with a hint of amusement in her voice. "Fitz. What an unexpected surprise." Vie was fairly certain that he knew he had gotten lucky to be dealing with Vie only. Fitz was smart enough to know that he had gotten the lesser of two evils--the other evil being her father. "I guess now I know why Dad's watch keeps saying Rosie's in Mortal Peril." Okay, so that was entirely made up. In fact, Vie was fairly certain that she was the only one that had a habit of landing on the Mortal Peril designation. And even that had been more so in the height of her... Obliviator training. Still, she couldn't help but poke a little fun at the Little Yaxley.

@ little yaxley | 697 words | outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF GS + WW

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Watchin' cigarettes

burn out

'Til all the neon gets turned out

Planning dates wasn’t exactly his forte. Not that he’s done a lot of it in his life, none, actually, before this, but he was making an effort. One part of Rosie’s life that could actually be good. He wanted that. He wanted to be her something good. The thing that she didn’t have to worry about all of the time. Because for only really knowing her since the summer, he already knew that things were not nearly as picture perfect as they seemed. And he understood that. You couldn’t grow up in the pure blood world and not understand a world where the picture that the rest of the world sees, couldn’t be further from the truth. Fitz was sure that out there somewhere there really was a family with no damage, but they weren’t here. They didn’t seem real. Not to them anyway.

And maybe her damage wasn’t something that she was going to share with him, but he would be there for her if it were. Not out of some noble sense of duty, but out of the fact that he got damage. Emotional damage. Mental damage. The kind of damage where you feel like you’ll never be good enough. The kind of damage that said that they hated you, just for being alive. That was the kind of damage that he understood, and he didn’t think that Rosie believed anyone hated her for being born, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t have that kind of damage. The real kind, the kind that you couldn’t see, but that you could most definitely feel. He knew that it was there, and he knew that it was hardest to deal with.

Fitz didn’t know what it was that Rosie had planned on doing about it, if anything, but he knew that he would be there. To help her. It was all that he could do to help her. Taking her on a date had meant planning a date though, and he had had to ask his sister-in-law for help. He could come up with the idea all on his own, but he has needed some help executing it. Doing things like getting a picnic basket ready, and then set up, were not his area of expertise. But Davina had checked it for him and made sure that he had everything that he was going to need, and he had been gone again before his brother had even known that he was there. It was weird to him, knowing that he could talk to Davina, but not to Griff. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t talk to him, it was just that he knew that he really didn’t want to.

That was fine though, he didn’t think that there was any reason to bother him, or Kate. He could just, live without them. It wasn’t much of a change. He had been living without them actually being siblings to him for his entire life. He could continue to live with it now. What he hadn’t been ready for though, was her sibling. He knew that she only had one, that Genevieve Urquart was the elder sibling, but he hadn’t thought that she was going to be home in the middle of the afternoon. Of course, that was exactly what he got for assuming anything.

Chuckling a little bit under his breath Fitz nodded, “Yeah…” Sprout was the one nickname he had realized actually annoyed Rosie the most. Even more than Rosie annoyed her. He had thought that it was logically the next step from Rosie to get to Sprout, but he didn’t think that she quite appreciated the thought that he had put into that one. “Mortal peril huh?” His normal, overly cocky mannerisms coming back after only a moment. “I guess that’s probably a good thing. Means she’s finally learning to live a little.” Whether or not Vie thought that that was a good thing, well, that was still up in the air. But Fitz thought that it was most certainly a good thing that she was having enough fun to be in ‘mortal peril’.

@ vie • 685 • fitzgerald's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[attr="class","backgmin"]

[attr="class","lyric1min"]burn out

[attr="class","lyricbgmin"]

[attr="class","lyric2min"]HAD THE WORLD ON A STRING
AND THEN I LOST EVERYTHING
AND THAT'S HOW I WOUND UP HERE

[attr="class","textbodmin"]Vie had a theory about being a lady. There was the constant expectation of propriety and near innocence when it came to holding that title. Which... proved difficult, in certain situations. There were times that Vie just wanted to do something, for the sake of being able to do so. For having the power to be able to do such a thing, and when it came to the Urquarts and most pureblood families, there was no shortage of power. But then that brought a conflict--one that Vie, thankfully, had resolved, in a way. Ladies couldn't get their hands dirty, supposedly. Her theory was that no one could find out that they got their hands dirty. It was all a matter of handling the situation as perfectly as possible, and after everything that Vie had faced, she thought she had grown quite skilled at that.

Which was saying a lot because, one of these days, Vie half expected Lindström's wife to just throw her under the bus and watch the disaster unfold.

That hadn't happened, and Vie was prepared to do whatever it took to keep it buried. She couldn't have one measly mistake get in the way of her life, especially not now. Especially not with Ivan in the mix. For one of the few times in Vie's life, she felt like she wasn't alone. Among friends and any other romance she had ever had, Vie had always felt as if she was shouldering the whole world on her own. But Ivan was one of the few people that made her feel like she didn't have to do that. And Vie was going to hold on to that as tightly as possible--especially now that her father had met him, and that he had been to the island. Vie didn't just feel happy about what she had with Ivan. She felt confident about it. It was something instinctual, a reflex by this point. Every time she got a letter from him, or she looked up to meet his eyes, the smile was instantaneous. There was no need to force pleasantries around him, and that was all she could as for.

Vie had heard about the little thing Lia had with Fitz. She knew there was some concern about keeping it secret--they were co-workers, after all. Vie had had to resist the urge to laugh. Still, she was intrigued. Honestly, with Lia spending those seven years in Gryffindor, Vie had not see this coming. The littlest Yaxley, standing in their great room. Vie's smirk was unwavering. She only raised an eyebrow at his rather quiet reply and let it rest. But the smirk on her face widened at his next words. "Living a little, mortal peril--much the same thing to Dad," Vie replied matter-of-factly. It probably was, really. If her years of... ah, extra credit work during her Obliviator training was anything to go by. "Speaking of, I can't imagine you came all this way to run into our father... what is your grand plan for the evening?" she questioned.

@ little yaxley | 509 words | outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF GS + WW

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
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Watchin' cigarettes

burn out

'Til all the neon gets turned out

He had never had to go through this much effort before, or if he had, he hadn’t bothered. Fitz hadn’t cared enough about someone else to make sure that they knew that he was really trying before. But he was trying for her. He was trying to make sure that she knew that these things were all about her. And he thought that tonight was going to be. He had gotten Davina to help him, and so long as Rosie was happy in the end, he thought that that was all that was going to matter. He just wanted her to be happy.

And to know that there were people that cared about her. That she did matter, and that she was beautiful. Because he had heard her say that she wasn’t enough times, he knew that he needed to remind her. That it was his job to make sure that she remembered that she was everything. That she was everything that she could be, and he wanted to do it. He wanted her to realize that there was more to all of this than that. That there was more to her life, than just what was right in front of her now.

He knew that just telling her things like that wasn’t going to work though. He knew that it was easier said than it was believed. That was something that he knew first hand. He knew how hard it was to not believe the good things, when all you saw in the mirror was how crappy things could be. He had seen it, over and over again. And yet, he thought that he could make her feel better. He thought that he could somehow prove it to Rosie, that she was better than all of that. Somehow. He didn’t exactly know how he was going to do that yet, but he was going to try. Because he wanted her to know that she was important to him.

That to him, she did matter. That she was special. And there was something to be said for all of that. He just wanted her to know that she was going to be fine. That in the end, nothing was going to be as bad as it looked beforehand. And so that meant that he did things like this. That he took her on dates that he had actually planned in advance. And he braved having to face her family to get her there. He knew that there had been a chance that he could have run into Lord Urquart when he had come here, but he hadn’t. So far it had just been her sister. And Genevieve Urquart was enough of a threat on her own.

He knew better than to bring Rosie home in less than perfect condition, because before her father even got to him, he was going to have to survive her sister. “Somehow, that does not surprise me.” He didn’t think that he had ever met their father for more than a moment at some party or another. But he didn’t think that he was going to test it any time soon. “We’re going on a… Uh… Surprise picnic.” Surprise because Rosie didn’t know that that was what they were doing, and picnic because, well, he had thought that it would be fun.

@ vie • 557 • fitzgerald's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0