i did something bad

outfit | @niles

I never trust a narcissist, but they love me
So I play 'em like a violin
And I make it look oh-so-easy

It was just another night here… they were all the same, or nearly anyhow. The clients were different, their demands were different. What they liked, what they wanted. But other than that, it was all the same. She was used to it by now. It was what she’d been doing for the past months that she’d been working at Fleur de Lis, and even longer still, before the place had opened. Before she had been here, Tamara had clients of her own, it just hadn’t been this official. She supposed that was the word for it. Mellie had gotten into contact with her, and this was just… better. There was no denying that. It was more secure, it was safer—it offered more clients, more money, and she didn’t have to worry about where she was meeting anyone. She didn’t have to worry about anything bad happening either—not more than the usual rough customer, because they would have Mellie to deal with… and they had plenty of other people around as witnesses too, if anything bad happened. It was just safer, and she wanted that. She thought she wanted it at least, but really, she wasn’t quite sure what she was living for anyway. If something ever had gone wrong, would it even matter? Her parents were dead… Jack was dead, and her brother hadn’t spoken to her in months. Not since he’d found out what she’d been doing here.

This hadn’t been her first choice for a job. After Hogwarts, she’d had bright enough ambitions. She’d gone to Lufkin University, she’d wanted to do something with her life. It just hadn’t been that easy. Jack had been deployed—his decision to go into the Muggle military like his father hadn’t surprised her, but it wasn’t easy. It was something that was a little hard to wrap her head around coming from an all magical family, but she’d done all the reading she could to find out more about it. It was hard… being the wife of someone in the Muggle military, trying to figure out if he was going to come home, and why he was risking his life in conflicts that didn’t impact the wizarding world… she’d never let on how difficult it had been. Of course, she’d support him no matter what he wanted to do, and she understood that the Muggle world wasn’t just some separate thing to him. His father was a Muggle. To Jack, it had mattered. He had wanted to do it, had been deployed and she’d gotten used to it, got accustomed to it and knew what to expect. She hadn’t expected him to die. She hadn’t expected him to leave her like that, and it just… had changed everything. She’d never really fully gotten back to normal, back to before that moment, when he’d left for the last time—when they were happy. Married, and happy. But that wasn’t her life anymore. She was so far separate from that person, sometimes she doubted whether that girl existed at all. Jack was gone. He was gone, and this was what her life was like now. She got by. Tamara had no complaints, truly.

She wasn’t miserable all the time. She could have good days, happy enough days, where she was in an all right mood, where she had her friends around, where something good happened. Mara didn’t think that she would ever truly be happy again, but that wasn’t to say she went through her life being absolutely miserable. She was okay, sometimes. She, for the most part, could figure out how to keep living, just like this. She had to take pleasure in the little things—be happy when one of her nicer regulars brought her a box of macaroons when he visited, or if she found a really comfortable sweater at the store… if she bought a good book, if she had some time to sit in a coffee shop in read. There could be good moments in her day, even if it added up to what she knew would be a mostly unhappy life. She couldn’t be happy without Jack, and Jack was gone. She was fine. That was as good as it was going to get. Today had been all right, but now she had to get through another night. She had no idea if sleep would be in the cards for her… there was no good way of knowing. If it was just clients wanting an hour or so, she’d probably work late into the night and maybe try to sleep… but there was no way of knowing if she’d even want to risk it. Her sleep paralysis made her a bit of an insomniac at times, so she wouldn’t be surprised if she got no sleep at all. But it would be hours until she had to worry about that. Instead, she was just touching up her lipstick in the mirror in her room. The door was open—someone passing by had let her know that a client had requested a brunette and that they’d be right in, so she knew she probably had only a moment or two before she found out just who she’d been spending an hour or so with, or all night…

outfit

Sometimes, Niles understood why Cass thought he couldn't take care of himself. Like,
in theory, he was a very responsible adult, you know? He had his own job, finished school and everything and his parents made sure he knew he had a place with them at home. Niles could cook (passably), do household chores (magically only) and first aid (by necessity). It was enough to live, right? But no, his sire insisted Niles was some sort of helpless maiden who would probably trip and die the moment he left supervision. Which, wow, so not true. He could take care of himself and make smart, informed decisions like any adult, thank you very much. Maybe not right now? Because right now, he felt kinda dumb. But in general! Niles thought that it was really unfair of Cass to judge him by isolated occurrences such as these, even though, ah, it was arguably very, uh... Well, it wasn't something that was going to be bragging about any soon, yeah? And Teddy was never allowed to find out. Ever.

But, well. He was here, wasn't he? For some reason, instead of going straight to the Strike after collecting a hefty sum from one of the Fleur de Lis patrons, he had hung around. It was a bar, wasn't it? He didn't quite fit with these posh blokes that were sipping expensive shite like there was no care in the world but, pff, humans. He would never fit in with them, no matter what. And he didn't quite care, you see, about what they thought of him. So Niles had ordered something that sounded very fancy and tasted terrible and sat there, watching. People watching was fun. You could find out a million things and then some. Mostly by knowing that, by being here, these men weren't actually having a blast at home. Niles himself never had a problem getting laid before which made the fact that, after two of those sickly sweet drinks, he got up and asked to speak with Madame de Lis. The girl who attended him at the bar looked sceptical but he had the cash and that seemed to be all that mattered. Niles would like to think that she was so surprised because he was handsome as heck and didn't really strike as the sort to pay for entertainment, rather than the fact he was dressed in jeans but who knew.

Niles had said a single hour only, mostly because he didn't have the gold for more but also because Cass would worry if he spent much time away. The same reception girl rattled off a room number and said he would be waited on which was, well, ominous to say at least, but he was trying to stay positive. Going up the stairs and making a turn, the door was just ahead. For a few moments, Niles just...stared. Was he sure? Really, one hundred percent sure? Ha, what sort of question was that, of course he was. He had already paid and he was here. Steeling himself with a deep breath, Niles pushed the door open and peered inside. There was a woman. A very beautiful woman. And she was wearing what it looked to be like a silk robe, stilletos and- oh heck, Mordred's cursed blade, she better be wearing something under that, otherwise conversation was going to be very short. "Uh, hey?" He would swear, some other time, that he wasn't actually a virgin. Really.

This job had just sort of… happened. Her life had gone downhill after Jack had died. She’d had a steady job, truly, and one that she had really enjoyed. She wanted to be a writer, but getting her foot in the door with editing had been a smart move, in her opinion. But once… it had happened, once she had found out that Jack was gone, everything had gotten worse. The sleep paralysis when she could sleep, insomnia the rest of the time… it was no surprise when she had gotten let go from her job, and getting a new one… or keeping a new one, had gotten harder. It had been harder and harder to get by, especially after her mum had died, and she had her hospital bills to pay. Once she had lost her house too, there really was nowhere else for her to go. It had been onto the streets, and she didn’t like thinking about the brief period of time that she had been homeless before this job had fallen into her lap. She had gotten all dressed up, had told herself that she was going to go have fun for a change, and had ended up at a hotel bar. That had led her to some bloke’s hotel room, and when he’d left money on the dresser the next morning, she hadn’t even had the dignity left to be offended. He had been gone by that point, so there wasn’t as if she could correct him anyhow.

He had left a note with his name and contact information on it as well, and he’d been her first client. She had never told him about the assumption that he’d made the first time. So he’d never known that he had been her first client, or what had gotten her started in this at all. But then he’d had a friend, and that friend had a friend, and all of a sudden, she had a client base that was enough to get her off of the streets and into a decent apartment. It had just fallen in her lap, and since she had no other way to get money, it had just… worked for her. It had its dangers, and she knew that. Everyone had their stories, in this line of work, but they also learned how to take care of themselves. They learned their limits too, and those were important to know and enforce. Hers weren’t… well, she didn’t have very many limits, at this point, because what was the point? This had turned into a lucrative way to spend money, and she had no complaints. Her life was as good as it was ever going to be, and she had that first man, and also Mellie, to thank for that. It didn’t mean that she didn’t miss Jack—obviously, she did. She missed him everyday, missed the life that they were supposed to have, but there was no getting that back. There was no use dwelling on it.

She wasn’t unhappy here. She couldn’t be, first and foremost, because looking depressed all the time wouldn’t do her any good at all. But she truly was content. She had a few friends here, she had enough money to get herself the finer things if she wanted them—usually for her, that just meant some truffles, or macaroons, maybe some nice wine if she felt like it. Tamara liked being able to buy what she wanted, and she gained satisfaction from the smaller things in life, like having a very delicious truffle. Some clients brought gifts too, and that was always nice. Some of them weren’t really bad at all, and actually knew what she liked. They bought nice presents, and the nice clients made up for the rough and not-so-nice ones. It all worked out rather well in her mind. Tonight was… Sunday? She had to think about it sometimes, as her days tended to blur together, but she didn’t have any regulars that usually came in on Sundays. Family dinners, or other obligations, kept them away on Sundays sometimes, so she knew that she’d mostly have blokes she’d never had before. She heard the sound of the door being pushed further open, so she closed the lipstick and set it back down on the dresser, before turning to face him. “Hi…” She said, with an amused smile. “You can close the door if you want. Or not.” Most did… but honestly, she’d had more than her fair share that kept the door open. “I’m Grace.” Going by her middle name was an obvious, and it saved her having to come up with some silly name—or going by her real name.

Of all the twenty two years of his life - going twenty three in a few months and Merlin help him, he was getting old and he'd turn into Cass and die -, Niles could probably say that close to sixteen of them were wasted in making stupid decision. Wait, no. Maths isn't his things but he had been four when he cut his forehead open by trying to go through the mirror portal so...eighteen. Eighteen bloody years of stupid, harebrained decisions on his back. The only surprising thing about his current predicament was that it hadn't happened earlier. Fair, he hadn't even known there were establishments such as these around the wizarding part of Britain. But it figured that he'd stumble inside one of them one day completely by accident and somehow get himself a room. With a person in it. A person that he paid to... Morgana. Okay, breathe. Don't hyperventilate. It's just like anyone else. Like Z and pretty Carolyn from the cafe down the street and Margaret from that shady dealing place up in Scotland. He can talk to girls, he can flirt and he can show them a good time. It's not news, hasn't been since fourth year.

And yet for some reason he looks like a wide-eyed imbecile, standing here in front of this woman - who's not dressed - who's beautiful but also looks very mature and is probably judging him for being a virgin idiot. Which he isn't. He's...probably going to ask Cass if it's normal to get cold feet in your first visit to a ladies' place. Or maybe not. Because Cass, Gryffindor he might be, he was such a Hufflepuff it hurt sometimes. Which both meant that he likely never visited a brothel in his life and would think ladies' place was code for beauty salon or something just as lame. Teddy was also a lost cause so not him. Was life so sad that he had no friends other than his sorta dad and Teddy? Ouch. Lame. Maybe he shouldn't share this anyway. Cass would both freak and disapprove whilst Teddy - the geese fighter who tripped over himself - would tease him forever and Niles was so not for this life.

Shaking his head slightly - he was here, might as well enjoy and he really didn't think she was wearing much under that short silky thing -, Niles stepped inside the room and closed the door, firmly. Or not. Was it a thing people did? Had sex with the door open in a public place such as this? Uh. Aaaaaaand he wasn't going to think on it deeply because this wasn't the place to have deep, meaningful revelations about one's own kinks. Grace - if that was really her name, Niles was gonna go on a limb here and say hell no - was smiling at him and he was pretty sure he was being judged. Like, ninety percent sure. Well, at the very least, she wouldn't be disappointed with him in an aesthetic sense so he could let her think he was an idiot. Though not a virgin. That notion she'd be losing at some point this night. "Hey, Grace," he said, aiming for casual and missing it by a few miles, hitting somewhere between nervous stutter and that pitch your voice got during puberty. He cleared his throat. "I'm Niles?" Shite. That wasn't supposed to sound like a question. "Uh, definitely Niles."

There had been a time in her life when she had been naïve to the darkness of the world. When she'd had no idea, just what people could really be like. A time when her life had been so perfectly normal, that it could make someone sick to their stomach. And she and Jack had been that couple-the one that annoyed everyone with how cute they were. It wasn't like it had been intentional or anything, but at least she could admit it, looking back. Their lives had been good, and they had been normal. She'd been happy. She'd been so unaware of what the future had held, because she just hadn't thought that anything bad could happen. Even the concept of something bad happening just… hadn't even seemed like a possibility to her. She hadn't worried about what the future held, because she'd been sure that everything was going to be all right. Of course, that had all started to change when Jack had made the decision to join the Muggle military. That had been when it had all started to change. It was something that she hadn't known anything about, something that had been a completely foreign concept to her. She didn't honestly even know any Muggles on a personal level, until she'd met Jack's parents.

She'd had to figure it all out, and she had. Tamara had known that Jack was worth it. She couldn't imagine her life without him, so she wasn't going to turn and run just because he wanted to be involved in something that she hadn't understood. She had just decided she was going to find out everything she could about it. Past, and present. History books, and Muggle newspapers, and whatever else she could find. She wanted to know what was going on, what Jack would be up against, and she had thought that would make it easier. Tamara had thought she would worry less if she actually understood it. But she didn't. It had only made her worry more… so much more. She'd regretted looking into it. She had regretted knowing. Remaining ignorant had seemed far better once she'd had that information, once she knew what he was walking into. There was nothing more terrifying to her than a gun. Tamara had never told him that, of course, but the Muggle weapon scared her. How could it not? While a wand could kill in hundreds of ways, in whatever creative way a twisted mind could think up, a gun tore through people. Ripped through them.

Tamara didn't like to think too much about it, even now. Not when she didn't even know how Jack died. She didn't know if it had been a gun, or some other Muggle weapon of war that she didn't know about. He could have been tortured, he could have been in pain for Merlin knew how long, and she just… didn't have those answers. They had never found a body. It was possible that it had been a bomb. She had read about those plenty. If that was the case, at least it had been quick. Hopefully. But there was still no way of knowing for sure if that was what had killed him. So it was better not to think about it at all. All that she knew, was that he was gone. Torturing herself over the details of that wasn't going to help when she wasn't ever going to know for sure. Even still, she didn't know if that hurt more. She didn't know if she'd be better off knowing for certain just how he had died, but if she had learned anything from all the research she had done… then she'd learned, sometimes ignorance was better. Sometimes, she wasn't strong enough to know the truth. This just might have been one of those times.

In her life, there had been plenty of times when she knew she hadn't been strong enough. And she would never stop blaming herself for that. It was something that she would just have to take with her for the rest of her life, however long that was. It seemed… extraordinarily endless without Jack. She couldn't imagine another century without him, and as a witch that was more than possible. But maybe not in this job… it was safe here, but not entirely. Bad things could still happen. It was all a matter of trusting her judgment and knowing when she was too uncomfortable. That didn't often happen. If she got nervous and said no to too much, she'd lose out on those clients, and that wasn't something she could afford to do. But she knew that… or hoped that, she'd have the instincts to get out of a very bad situation. It just hadn't come about yet. She didn't think that would change tonight. The man in front of her certainly didn't appear to be a threat. In fact, he seemed incredibly nervous. "Niles, you don't have to be nervous." She had no idea if this was his first time in Fleur De Lis, or in general, but regardless, she wasn't going to bite. At least not unless he wanted her to. "Have a drink? I've got… scotch. And if you're not in the mood for that, more scotch…" If he wanted something else, she would of course oblige and go and get it for him, but she had been in the mood for scotch earlier, so that was the only bottle sitting on the dresser.

Normally, Niles was the sort of bloke that rolled with the punches. Being bitten by a werewolf? Sure, I'll deal. Having to give up on all his hopes and dreams for the future? Pff, piece of cake. Ending up working in the underground because no one else would hire his kind? Bah, I've had worse. Nothing truly phased him and, if it did, it wasn't for long. It just...wasn't the sort of person he was. If he stopped to think, if he stopped period, then he wouldn't be able to get moving again. It was easier to just go along with it, taking the hits and barely allowing himself to slow down. It worked for him until now and it would work until the day he died, Niles was sure. It was one thing Cass never learnt, because when something shook Sourwolf too badly, he hid to lick his wounds somewhere instead of allowing it to roll off his back like Niles did. In a way, he couldn't blame Cass at all. What that bloke had been through...Niles didn't know all of it but he's seen the scars, he knows enough. His sire wasn't well and never really got therapy for it and he needed to shut off sometimes. Niles respected it and he couldn't say that he wouldn't have done the same in his place.

It was different, however, in a social setting. Mostly because Niles had always been as easy going as they came, friendly and helpful even if he was a little too mischievous and too curious for his own good (Exhibit A: the bite). Friends were easy to make and easier still to maintain, even if none of them had been that close. Figures that he'd end up sleeping with his closest one but that's just who he was as a person. Besides, he and Zyra worked it out. It was fine. But it didn't change that it was strange for him to be so nervous even though it was technically a new situation. It was just sex. Sure, he'd be paying and she's a complete stranger and this place looks posh enough to be The New Pureblood Haunt but it shouldn't be like this. Niles shouldn't be acting like a goddamn virgin when his girlfriend loses the bra. Both because he had never had a girlfriend and because he had been such a smooth bastard in his first time that the girl probably didn't even notice that he had been as much of a virgin as her. Morgana's sparkly bralette, he could definitely use some of that bloody confidence right now. Mostly because otherwise this witch was going to think he was a virgin and if she offered to help him or something else he was liable to break down and cry in despair.

Grace telling him that he didn't have to be nervous was so funny that he had to bite his lip to suppress a grin. Hah. Would that it was that easy. Yeah, okay. Keep your cool, Niles. It's not like you don't know what to do. Rolling his shoulders to loosen up the knotted muscles, he nodded in thanks, a grateful smile showing up on his lips. She was trying to make him feel at ease even though she didn't have to - wait, not, she kind of did, it was her job, wasn't it? - and he appreciated it. "Scotch sounds great, Grace, thanks. Make it a triple dose? I've got a bit of a high threshold, I'm afraid," and by that he meant that the whole bottle wouldn't have done a thing for him but she didn't need to know that particular fact, did she?

There had been a time when this had made her nervous too, she supposed. It felt like ages ago now, and it had been… complicated. After all, her first encounter with this world had been an accident. What she had thought was a one-night stand had been… a man that thought she was getting paid for it. There had been money on the dresser the next morning and she hadn’t known how to react. A part of her had wanted to be offended that someone had thought that of her, but another part of her knew that she couldn’t be. She needed money. After losing Jack, then her mum, and the house--her job as well, somewhere down the line, and she couldn’t exactly be offended by money that been given to her. He had been long gone anyway, so there was no way for her to give it back. Sure, he had left his contact information… but wasn’t it more embarrassing to get ahold of him to say that she wasn’t what he had thought she was? Tamara hadn’t exactly considered that to be an option at all.

So, she hadn’t been nervous the first time, because she hadn’t known that was what he had thought was happening at all. Once she had started doing it intentionally, that had been a different matter entirely. She had definitely been nervous, it had just been a matter of whether or not she could actually show it. Sometimes she could. Sometimes what they wanted didn’t exactly work if she was the nervous one. It was something that had gotten easier with time, but the fact of the matter was… she understood the nerves. Tamara didn’t know if this was his first time in a place like this one, or if he was always the nervous type, but it didn’t matter. It was still her responsibility to make sure that she put him at ease, and she did think that alcohol helped with that. She was not normally fully sober either; she was never drunk, because that was unprofessional, but a couple of drinks always helped. It was just about a necessity.

Of course, she wasn’t going to say that. Her clients didn’t need to know that she had to have a buzz to do her job. And it wasn’t as if she always drank. There were sometimes when she was sober. It really depended on the night, depended on if there were regulars and how easy they were to deal with. Still, the fact of the matter was, she couldn’t tell him that she was less nervous when she was drinking too. She had to always be at ease, always fine, and at this point… she at least wasn’t nervous anymore. Tamara was just… used to it. It was as simple as that. Drinking just took the edge off. “Triple dose it is.” She said, turning back to the dresser to grab the bottle. She poured him a generous portion, and after only a second’s hesitation, poured herself the same amount. She didn’t think that she really needed anymore, but she also didn’t think that he would want to drink alone anyhow. Once she handed him the glass, she picked up her own. “So I’m assuming you’ve never been here before…” It seemed like a safe enough assumption to make, though she truly didn’t consider his nerves to be a bad thing.