“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”

ooc- bit of language here.

For a moment, it was like Oliver couldn't breathe. Like Alice was stealing each breath from him when she reached for some new patch of skin or other -- or, indeed, when she pulled him up to match her kiss move for move. How was it that this was now okay, when two days ago she had run away? All Oliver really knew was this: as soon as it stopped, he would be dying to have it back. The feeling, that is. The nearness and the stupid idea that she might change her mind. This was more, in every sense of the word, than Oliver could have ever expected Alice to allow or give him, and he just couldn't get enough air. His hips canted forward without him even having to think about it. All rational thought had been lost, he mused, even though he was incredibly aware that it was Alice he was hovering over, and Alice who had drawn him in and captured him. Trapped him.

He was fucking doomed.

When Alice broke away, Oliver drifted his hands back up her legs and around to her back, watching as she spoke. A desperate sound broke free when they kissed again, and he decided that he would just have to handle it. He would have to ignore it later if Alice wanted him to, and let her make any future moves. He really didn't have a choice; he needed her in a completely different way than he had upon receiving the letter, and Oliver felt like he was going to go absolutely mad when she arched into him.

In the back of his mind, Oliver registered again just how simple it was for the two of them to work behind closed doors. It didn't make a lot of sense, most of the time, but now that they were hidden away - all the more thanks to the blanket - nothing else could possibly matter. It shouldn't have been true, of course, considering everything that had happened with Thalia, but his mind was clouded. Nothing at all was coming to mind except Alice and how serious his feelings apparently were. He was lost, floating in wait as he tried to determine what in the world was going on in Alice's mind.

Show me.

"I can do that," Oliver swore, meeting her gaze with a promising smirk. It took an inordinate amount of determination to pull away from her kisses, but he moved down to greet the skin at her collerbone properly before hedging further south. It was as his fingers found the tops of her stockings that Oliver paused, dropping a kiss at her side, and failed to keep his opinions to himself. "God, you're beautiful, Allie."

It wasn't Oliver's fault, necessarily, when the covers Alice had tugged over them slid down to where they had been before. Honestly, he was distracted - utterly and seemingly endlessly. The rest of their bits of fabric ended up discarded to the floor, left to join the growing mess Oliver would undoubtedly refuse to let Alice help clean later. That is, when either could bring themselves to leave the safety of the blankets and discover what exactly had changed. Something had to. So long as Oliver hadn't become one of those men she tried on and then discarded, he would probably be okay. If he wasn't a random shag just for the sake of Alice having one, he supposed he would manage well enough. After all, in the moment he had found absolutely nothing that was worth worrying himself over.

It was remarkably good, to be quite plain, considering neither of them had intended it, and considering Oliver had debated refusing it. He just knew that if Alice took up dating new men each Friday, again, he wouldn't be able to help her when she came home. Not now. The couch would be come his new habitat come nightfall, and Alice could just have free reign of whichever room she wanted.

Yes, Oliver could admit that she claimed to need him, and that it concerned him to hear that she had been upset the night before. But even as he attempted to catch his breath, untangled his feet from within the sheets, and moved to settle beside her, he was trying to see why Alice had even started it in the first place. Oliver knew that while most men would perhaps try to find some excuse that they could pin on the girl in question, but he couldn't help but worry that Alice might have acted strangely because he had shown interest -- because she had seen just how much he was hurting. In other words, because she felt sorry for him.

If so, that made her decision... his fault. What if she stepped downstairs and suddenly came to the conclusion that he had used her, and started to resent him? It wasn't like he really had done so... had he? Shit. He might've. For the record, though, reader: No, he hadn't technically done so, but that ever-guilty conscience of his immediately put him in the wrong, anyway. It decided for him that he had done exactly what he shouldn't have, and pointed out that he needed to run damage control before she figured it out, too. So Oliver tucked his chin as he had before, but this time it was done so that Oliver could set his forehead against her shoulder and press kisses to her arm.

He needed to get up, realistically. Sooner, rather than later. The knowledge that she would go to get dressed - or whatever she meant to do - merely made him nervous, and Oliver had no desire to be told just how uninterested she was. Or to find out how upset she was with him. He shouldn't have done it, and he knew that. It was as he reached up to leave a kiss at her temple that he realized the truth.

He had no idea - none at all - where this act put him, but for all of his well-meaning and his promises to himself that he wouldn't pursue anything... all of that had been thrown out the window. She hadn't actually been staying with them all that long, in the grand scheme of things, but Oliver was absurdly embarrassed to admit:

He was... well, besotted. And it sucked. He felt like a complete bastard for having gone through with it, in hindsight. But, it really didn't matter how Alice saw him -- especially now that Oliver was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he really, truly was one.

It was with wild abandonment that they loved each other. The mixture of limbs, of searching mouths, and of daring fingertips set in her skin a frenzy that made her gasp and writhe and cry out amidst the dizzying pleasure that ripped through her body. An intoxicating warmth thrummed in her every pore. The sheets were tossed this way and that and their legs lifted, their backs surged, and their hearts thundered with this wantonness that neither really realised had been building. In time, perhaps over croissants and sweet coffee, the blonde woman whose entire form rose to mould with his,  she would wonder how she’d come to be so bold. But the whys and wherefores could wait. It was the moment that was blessed and to be treasured; the sublime act of being in love, without the realisation that it was so deeply bred within her very person.

The crescendo hit all of a sudden, catching her almost by surprise and as satisfaction rumbled through her, splintering out its feeling to every extremity of her body, her spine arched and she cried out, her nails digging into the shoulders of the man above her. Then they abandoned themselves side by side, pulling down the covers so as to get air to their surging skin. Alice’s eyes slid shut, her arms tossed above her head, her fingers curled against the headboard of the bed. She exhaled softly, her chest continuing to heave beneath the sheets as she gathered herself once more, trying to get to grips with the world about her. To no avail. Her senses were entirely polluted and comprised solely of Oliver. And Merlin, she didn’t mind, either.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the movement of her friend-turned-lover. They, her thoughts, had been straying back towards a slight stab of guilt that made her wonder whether she had been too playful and flyaway with his feelings. But as his head was laid against her shoulder, Alice drew her arms about him, one set of fingers beginning to comb lightly thorough the hair at the nape of his neck while the other drew along his arm fondly, her nails softly scratching into his skin. She lifted her head a little to press a kiss into the crown of his head and then dropped hers back into the soft pillows, letting her eyes slide shut for her to grasp a few more moment’s rest before necessity began to demand their getting up.

The blonde’s eyelids flickered open as his lips brushed her forehead and she leaned in to tease her lips back to his once more, falling into the kiss with a contented sigh against his mouth. It fell to its natural end and Alice tipped her head back into the pillows, waiting out the few moments she had left, her ears twitching a little as they listened out for the movement of the people within the house which was beginning to be much more regular, indicative of a collective decision that now was a sensible and advised time to begin to take breakfast. She never wanted to leave the bed, though. She didn’t want to have to scrub off Ollie from her skin. She didn’t want to have to eat and try to decide through that what they were.

What were they?

Eventually though, movement down their corridor meant that they really had little excuse to linger on where they were. She slid out first, whispering against his lips that she was going to shower. Once the lingering smell of raspberries and cream was rubbed back into her skin and her hair she emerged, finding out a dress of herself. The general mood seemed congenial so she didn’t feel exceptionally guilty about donning her mustard yellow, white polka dot dress. She found out her pair of scarlet heels and a chunky red necklace to bring up the colour and put on both before beginning to set her damp hair into soft waves that curled prettily at the end.

They emerged from the bedroom together after making the bed and tidying up as best they could. Not for the first time in her life, Alice reflected how she hated living out of bags and certainly wouldn’t take for granted a spacious wardrobe. Nevertheless, they made it out semi put together. She’d gone for minimal make-up for simultaneous reasons – the first and primary one being she couldn’t be bothered to put it on and the second underlying reason being that she hadn’t brought much, really. No, she went sparse and simple and it suited her.

The kitchen and breakfast room were abuzz with activity that was somewhat muted by the lingering hangovers. The children were alight with happiness, though, and comparatively Alice and Ollie, having staved off their headaches with the hot showers they’d had, were to. They lingered closely to each other as they made their way into the rooms, murmuring ‘good morning’, where some were sitting in their pyjamas, others having made it as far as they had – to getting dressed, that is. The children were talking animatedly over chocolate croissants and large cups of sweet tea. Bright yellow glasses of orange juice were sitting on the table, a large pitcher in the middle alluding to where they’d gotten it from and different coffees were in pots waiting to be poured. All, barring the little ones, seemed fairly miserable – most especially Ariel whose head was resting in his arms on the table top, the omelette in front of him untouched.

It wasn’t until Ollie indicated for her to do so that Alice finally took a seat on the right hand side of Ariel who barely even noticed she was there. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and sourced a latte before turning one leg over the other and stretching out to grasp a warm croissant out of the bowl in the middle of the table. With a knife she levered the flaky pastry open and then slathered a helping of chocolate inside before sprinkling banana and strawberry slices in too.

“How can you eat that?” Ariel ground out roughly, his voice thick and scratchy, left over from the wine, as he watched her lick the chocolate from her fingertips. He buried his face back into his arms and she smirked around her ring finger which she had caught between her lips, her tongue waving over the skin, clearing it of the chocolate. She slid if free from her mouth and picked up a fork, glancing idly at Ariel as he reached out for his coffee which he supped at desperately.

“You look well,” she offered to him ironically, breaking off the end of the croissant with the side of her fork. Melting chocolate oozed out of the end and Ariel moaned dismally, his face paling at the sight of the food. Alice stabbed the end with her fork and she swirled it in the puddle of chocolate before teasing out a piece of strawberry to join her fork. Then together she brought it all to her lips, savouring the burst of sweetness that swept its way across her tongue.

“I feel like I got dragged through a bush backwards,” Ariel retorted, his hands grasping at either side of his head. Alice smiled into her coffee as she brought it to her lips and she averted her gaze, finding Ollie once more briefly. She winked at him before she returned to her breakfast, setting down her cup gently. Ariel continued to look pale and nauseous and Alice slowly ate, drinking from both her coffee and her glass of juice. Eventually, Ariel began to eat his way through his omelette and more people came to the table, replacing those who slunk off for a shower or to do something else.

“What do we want to do today?” Alice asked gradually, glancing at Ollie, a smile lifting the sides of her mouth. She took another mouthful of the croissant, savouring the taste. Ariel shot her a withering look as he swallowed back some of his omelette. He set down his fork again and took to the coffee once more, muttering into it his full intention of returning to bed. Alice sent an empathetic look in his direction and set her own cutlery down to break and take a sip of her orange juice.

“We could go for a walk,” she offered, knowing that she was now mostly suggesting this to Ollie. “Or if you have anything else in mind-”

“Bed!” Ariel ground out. “How about bed? Why don’t we all just go to bed?”

Alice’s mind, needless to say, descended into the gutter. She smirked a little in Ariel’s direction and shook her head, smothering back the expression with another mouthful of juice. She wasn’t entirely opposed to that idea, either.

For all of Oliver's attempts at self control, the instant Alice found herself falling over the end, he was tumbling right beside her, almost desperate for the moment to last even as he was pleased that it had finally happened. In fact, he was perhaps a bit too reverent when it came to Alice in that breath of time - absurdly so. Really. He had been stupid enough to nearly let himself give out declarations of affection, of endearment, and indeed even the truth about just how deeply both of those feelings were burning through his skin.

Burrowing his face in her neck, it was all Oliver could do to keep quiet as he grasped at her - recklessly, passionately, hopelessly - even as he supported himself with his other hand against the mattress. The only word that escaped, in that moment of careening, was her name. He hadn't even realized how badly he ached for her until she had denied him the first time. God, it was strange.

How backwards they were! All he had wanted was for her to accept him, accept his entreaty. For her to let him take care of her. He was in love with the idea of being in love, but that just couldn't happen for him without the other person being equally invested. Yes, he could find himself wanting to love someone, but no part of him seemed willing to accept the emotion as truth if he had no one to reciprocate the feeling. There was no point, and Oliver was tired of the heartache such rejection brought.

But, Alice? He just had no choice but to adore her, for everything she was - or, indeed wasn't. For all she said and did, and most especially for how insane she made him on a daily basis. The woman was beautiful, as he had pointed out almost thoughtlessly earlier, and yet there she was, somehow choosing him. It wasn't exactly what he had been hoping for, and it wouldn't suffice in the long run. But then, Oliver had never been the conquest sort. He wasn't in relationships to finally reach that moment where he was allowed to be as close to the woman as he just had been with Alice. No, he was the sort deemed ridiculous for wanting the relationship for the more serious stuff. He was hoping for what his parents had. With everything in him.

He wanted the life they had - family, a home that was theirs, and mostly the fact that they had the other person there. Oliver wanted to go to sleep and wake up knowing that he would never be without that one girl, and would never want to be. Would never have to be. He just.... he wanted to be wanted in more ways than Alice seemed able to just then. He wanted, really, for someone to ache for him when he wasn't there, and to look after him when he finally was. And he wanted to be able to curl around his wife and ensure that she would never see harm or feel any pain.

It was all very embarrassing, he supposed, but as a writer it didn't seem so strange. He had watched people fall in love with characters who held those same values, yet no one could do so for him. He had convinced himself long ago that he came on too strong, and so Oliver hadn't bothered trying to find someone -- not for ages. Nearing a year, really. And now Alice had just shown up, like the Fates had set her in front of him and told him not to fuck it up this time.

He had lied to himself, before. About Alice, that is. He wasn't besotted. He wasn't even enamored. He loved her, inexplicably, and he just didn't understand it. But there was no escaping now. As he sank further into the mattress, Oliver's mind was complaining that she would leave the room and he would be stuck metaphorically in the dark. Alone, for the hundredth time. He loved her, and he was making an ass of himself because of it.

He knew they had to go downstairs, realistically, but leaving the room meant thinking. Actually, leaving the bed at all would bring that to the surface, wouldn't it? Oliver was quite sure it would. So he did his best to make every additional gesture, touch, or kiss linger. He savored them, it was probably clear, because he couldn't be guaranteed that she wouldn't regret it later and refuse him any of the contact they currently had. He almost wanted to apologize, considering how unromantic it was, and how he really should have objected due to their lack of specified attachment. But apologizing was a bit too much like saying he regretted it. And Oliver most certainly couldn't do that. Not unless she outright stated that she had done it to try and appease him after everything had gone wrong. That, he knew, would just destroy him -- not to mention his trust in her.

Although, really, it didn't make a lot of sense, his trying to rationalize what had just happened with a sense of trust. Trust didn't necessarily have anything to do with it, if one thought about it. People weren't known, per se, for trusting each person they fell into bed with. Oliver, though? He wouldn't have gone through with it if he didn't trust her. Or, think he did. The only question, really, was: what, exactly, was he trusting her with? His anxiety and fear after Thalia? His heart?

He just wished he knew.

His breathing was still unstable by the time Alice said she would be heading to shower, and half of him wanted to toss out a suggestion that he join her, but it was kept inside. Instead, in an endeavor to avoid their quiet, arguably stress-free moments coming to an end, Oliver's arms encircled her waist so he could draw her against him when he sat up. A series of kisses were trailed from her shoulder, aiming north. When he finally reached his destination, one hand threaded into her hair, and Oliver took her lower lip between his teeth for a moment before properly melding his lips with hers. Deciding that it could probably give away too much of the truth, he let his hands fall away as he stole one last kiss, then sank back into the pillows.

It wasn't until the door to the bathroom had closed that Oliver finally remembered their attempted conversation from the night before. Alice had suggested they visit her parents.. Was that from her having met his? And she meant the three of them, right? Not just her and Oliver? He covered his face with his hands, groaning and trying to settle his mind. He was incredibly torn between his need to do what was right - by keeping things normal and, perhaps, even professional - and his innate desire to keep things just as they had been, when neither thought and things just happened.

He had half expected Alice to go downstairs without him, but he showered and tidied up the scruff along his jaw, only to open the bathroom door and find her still there. A few minutes later, his arm was wrapping around her waist as they started towards the dining room. Knowing he would be expected to great the rest of the family who hadn't been around the night before, he gestured for Alice to sit as he released her, picked up a coffee mug, and made his way over to the kids' table. Aside from Minnie, the youngest kids were in their early teens, and at least two of them asked after Oliver's friends. Neither were paying attention, of course, when Oliver looked up to offer names to the children. That is, until he started back towards them, taking a sip from his coffee, and had to hold back a smirk behind the rip of the mug when Alice winked at him. His hand found her shoulder as he returned to the table, passing it as a random gesture on his way down into his seat. In truth, the man himself didn't know what it meant, but it was oddly casual at the same time as making a point that he was in on her joke.

An amused chuckle escaped at Ariel's interjection, but he nearly agreed. It would be easier to run back and hide under the covers than figure out how to manage things that night. If Oliver even wanted to sleep at all the night before the service. But that wasn't the point. He was supposed to offer suggestions for how to spend their day. "Well," he began, speaking around bites of toast, "there's sticking around the house. A walk," he inclined his head towards Alice, "or swimming, though the kids will probably be holding the pool hostage." Besides, how difficult would it be to focus with Alice in a swim suit? Especially now.

"Or," he added, leaning towards her and setting his arm across the back of her chair, "we could apparate elsewhere. We'd just have to be careful about what we tell Mum's family. They get a bit strange about it. Understandable, though." Oliver lifted a shoulder, sat up properly, and reached for a couple pieces of bacon, adding, "Up to you."

For a few moments, as the taste of coffee spread decadently across her tongue, Alice closed her eyes. Across the inner side of her lids, images flashed, her mind recalling the hot tangle of limbs, the searching mouths and the desperate cries that rumbled from betwixt their lips. Her eyes snapped back to opening and she smothered away the scalding heat of her cheeks and the sudden dryness in her throat by taking her cup back up to her face. Ariel’s groan from beside her allowed her to refocus her thoughts for a time, though with every blink, her senses were reabsorbed by the dizzying bouquet of sights, sounds, smells, and touches which had been imprinted into her every pore. Unequivocally, it took her back to the moment where the cacophony that was her life finally, irrevocably boiled down to one discernible sound; and it terrified her.

It seemed inexplicable to her that such a revelation should wash over her in the most innocuous of places, in the most innocuous of moments. Breakfast. The cup in her hands clinked softly down on the off-white table cloth and she picked up her fork again, finding out for herself a poached egg and some toast, no longer desirous of the sweetness which had purveyed her senses not moments before. As the yolk split and spilt over the bread, soaking into its charcoaled surface, she found a little bit of level-headedness as chatter began to be taken up idly amongst Ollie’s relatives. The rush of colour, assaulting her gaze, allowed for her to focus upon something else, anything else, but the thrumming activity of her skin which felt as though it had been awakened with lightning. She felt as though she could sense is every breath and ever indistinct, slight shift of his body. She was so aware of him, she felt like she had taken on something of him, his very essence and life force.

She wanted to accuse him of cheating. As she turned her head, she found her gaze, narrowed and heavy though it was, slipped to his lips and fell in wonder over them. Like a moth to a flame, unaware of the dangers of straying to close, not able to care if her wings burned up, she leaned closer. Blessedly, before she could serve to further embarrass herself in the light of any eye casting across them, he sat up once more, his arm slipping off of the back of her chair. Her body grew colder, mourning the loss of his nearness, and she instinctively shuffled closer to him, as much as her seat and propriety would allow for. It would be something, nevertheless, which Ariel would notice though in his state she took thanks from the fact that he would probably take the wrong end of the stick and think she was moving from him, not to someone else. Thankfully, for that moment he said nothing anyway and Alice was allowed to resume with her meal, weighing up the options laid out for them, her heart competing with her head, bearing the below the belt images which strayed her from her more sensible, daylight thoughts.

“Why don’t you do it all?” Ariel asked, his long fingers curling around the broad handle of the carafe of coffee. He poured himself some more, dumping in a few lumps of sugar along with it, and then topped off Alice’s cup, setting one carafe down before picking up the small jug of steamed milk that had been set on the table. He twinkled it into her coffee and stirred it with a chocolate wafer, a handful of which were in an old jam jar. Alice thanked him softly as he set her cup back down near her and she watched him idly as he bit into the wafer, waiting for the embellishment which would come given the time.

“Go on your little adventure,” he continued between bites. “Take a walk while you’re there and return with the sun in your hair and cherries in your cheeks and swim until twilight when sense has seen the children take leave of the water.” Ariel finished with a watery smile that indicated that not all of him was present and accounted for. He still looked pale and ill; no amount of coffee seemed to be doing the proper trick. She marvelled at his sense of poetry, though, and wondered whether there was something in him that knew. There had to be, she rationalised, given that a person who knew them so well, so inexplicably, who had known without being told that her bed had gone untouched for many a night and fathomed his own ends about everything – he had to know, even if not consciously.

“You could go back to Paris,” Ariel went on, “and buy me some pastries and have lunch in that pretty café near the Notre Dame. Go play in the Louvre and tell all those French jessies where to stuff themselves,” his lips turned down at the end into a grimace as Alice laughed aloud, the sound tinkling through the air like the distant toll of church bells which clanged across the landscape, floating in through the tall doors that opened out to the world. Her pale brows rose and she looked at Ariel meaningfully, gesturing around her with a flicker of her fingers. He looked, a stretch of wonder crossing his face. He looked as though he was going to apologise for the barest of moments but the Scotchman soon shrugged, uttering that he liked the Connollys so the umbrella term didn’t apply. Alice didn’t bother to ask what Ariel thought of her or her family.

Turning back to Ollie, Alice was momentarily stunned and all words that had formed in her throat fell away from her. All she could do for a few breaths was stare at him. Eventually her words came, though she could offer no more insight into what they should do with their day than Ariel. As she stared at Ollie, she knew she was completely and utterly doomed. She recognised that she did want to go back to bed, to convince herself that it hadn’t been some far-fetched dream. Even if it had, she wanted to sleep to relive it over and over. She wanted to kiss him and retrace the steps her fingers took across his skin. She wanted to feel that it was real. Again, and again, and again. There was, in truth, little hope for her being able to hold any sense of a conversation for long – not as long as her mind wandered on.

“Ariel did make a good point,” she emerged. “We could try to do everything. Or just one. I’d like to go for a walk though, whatever we do. The day is too pretty to waste inside,” Ariel scoffed, as though the idea of going anywhere where there was too much light was utterly repugnant to him. Alice sent him a terse look in response. “Shall we go after this?” She asked, eager to cement some plans lest she did dare to be so bold as to tempt Ollie back to bed with her. She liked purpose to her days, however, and though that did not lack purpose, she’d only ever driven around Cheroy with her father - she wanted to see it.

“Get me a souvenir,” Ariel declared, getting up from the table, bringing his coffee with him. “If you take the car, don’t smash it, there’s no insurance. I couldn’t confound the poor sod enough to give me that, too.”

Then with that, the werewolf disappeared, no doubt back to bed, and Alice found herself shaking her head as anticipation brewed in her stomach. She wasn’t sure what it was for but she knew that regardless of what happened, the day at hand would be highly interesting indeed.

It wasn't until Oliver looked up and felt the fairly judgmental gaze of his father that he realized how inappropriately they were acting. At least Ariel looked put out, which wasn't all that unusual but admittedly more sensible than his and Alice's smirks and leaning too close and generally apparent need to touch each other. As Ariel was heading up the stairs, Greg and Deb were on their way down, and they eyed their son pointedly before greeting the son's roommate as he passed them. Gregory offered a gentle pat of understanding, which Oliver almost had to wonder - was it just a show for the relatives? After all, Gregory and Oliver were always the strange ones, and now they had brought equally strange friends to join them. And, worse still, Oliver was sitting there like nothing in the world could be wrong, when his own sister was the one they were missing from the table.

He could feel the embarrassment lick its way up the back of his neck, and was sure that his face and ears might have reddened from the shame of it. Glancing up again, Oliver caught sight of the displeased gaze his mother sent Alice's way, and quickly brought his coffee mug back to his lips. Perhaps if he couldn't speak, she wouldn't comment or expect any answers. It was like she knew his tactic even before he went with it - which, granted, made sense as she was essentially used to it after twenty-odd years - because as Gregory took Ariel's abandoned spot, Deborah sat down across from Alice and narrowed her eyes at the pair of them.

"Morning," she offered warily, reaching for the juice so she could pour herself and her husband a glass each. "You seem oddly chipper, Oliver."

Swallowing, he sent her an apologetic look before ducking his head. She was right, of course, and Oliver should have known better. It just set in his mind all the more that idea that he would appear to have used Alice if anyone found out. Or if she thought too hard about it. But it wasn't true, and he had no idea how to explain it away. Perhaps they wouldn't talk about it again....

Not bloody likely.

"I just got to bed earlier than expected. Much better than the night before," he attempted, determined not to bring Alice into it. She didn't need to be involved in any tiff he was having with his parents. Gregory lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. It was incredibly lucky, Oliver mused to himself, that no one barring Ariel was staying on their end of the hall, with most guest rooms downstairs and their parents at the far end past the library and guest bath. "Um," Oliver tried again, "I was just suggesting that I take my roommates around town today." His words came out a bit more loudly, as he hoped to catch the attention of anyone nearby. If it worked, his motives and absence wouldn't be questioned later. "I figure they don't need to sit round while the rest of us try to handle it. It isn't like either were too close, though Ariel of course knew her. I don't think he wants to go, though."

"That'd be fine," Gregory put in quickly, clearly expecting his wife to be a bit miffed at the thought. He, too, seemed to have noticed the tension in her stance when Deborah was around Alice. Though, unless Deb had explained why, Oliver wasn't sure his father quite understood it yet. "Air will do you good, I'm sure."

Oliver nodded, picked up his last bit of toast, and stood up as he bit into it, clearly signaling the end of his attempted conversation with them. "We should get going so we can be back for dinner. I'm sure we'll all need to be around tonight to help the little ones get to sleep." Not that Oliver himself had any intentions of sleeping. After all, he would be expected to find something to say the next afternoon, and he didn't have a clue how he would manage it. Not one. "Alice?" he beckoned, extending a hand towards her.

Once they were both up and their plates put in the sink, he tugged her along, through the front entrance and past the car Ariel had procured at the airport. They clearly wouldn't be needing it. It was just lucky that Oliver had thought to tuck his wand into his shoe in case they needed it. He didn't stop until they passed through the front gate and he had sank back into the wall of greenery that separated their land from the road. "Sorry," he mumbled, giving her hand a squeeze before he released it and let his arm fall to his side. "It's just... they're right, y'know? How can I be this oblivious? I mean, just a couple days ago I was ready to tear things to bits and now, I-"

Shaking his head, Oliver brought his eyebrows together, trying to figure out when, exactly, he had stopped acting normal. He had never handled loss well, but this time something was different. His gaze drifted back to Alice, and a part of him registered that it was her. She had come in and just been there when he needed someone to be, and that was a hell of a lot more than anyone else had done in the past.

"We should just stay in town, today," he finished lamely, crossing his arms over his chest as though they could help him act more like he should. As if they could keep him from wanting to pull Alice into another hug.

A faint stab of guilt made its way through the woman who in something of a rush lost her appetite and could only suffice as to console herself through sips of her coffee. There was naught but dregs of shiny orange juice in the bottom of her glass but the coffee survived. A few pieces of debris were on her plate along with the golden swirls of egg yolk which she had failed to mop up with her toast but other than that she had indulged herself with breakfast, as though still nursing her own minor headache which, at the sight of Ollie’s parents, sprung up as though it had never even abated in the first place.

The feeling of being boxed in welled up within her blood as Gregory sat down beside her. Then with Deborah sliding down demurely into the seat opposite, Alice found herself walled in by Connollys. She glanced up as his mother spoke and she immediately found something else to look at, namely the wall across the other side of the room, the paint strokes of which were interesting enough for Alice to pay attention to. She’d never felt as admonished by a glance, even when David’s mother had hauled herself to the Rousseau home to curse at the youngest until she was blue in the face for what Paul-Henri’s “abhorrent child” had done to her precious boy.

Cake comes out in the wash, Francine. He had uttered before slamming the door in the snub-nosed woman’s face. But of course, that was a different scenario entirely in which David was in the wrong intrinsically and had about as much right to be affronted as the bad womb that had borne him had. This did not expunge anything she was guilty of here, of course. She had robbed of their son the most pivotal part of the mourning process: the misery. Chipper wasn’t quite was someone was supposed to be in the wake of the death of their sibling. At that thought, even the coffee lacked appeal.

Alice listened dutifully to the exchange, her fingers loose around the cup. She glanced up only briefly to offer a small smile to Ollie’s father, who appeared to share her mother’s insistence that nothing would cure ills like the outdoors. It had never really resulted in any good, especially when her children were ill. She had often hauled Alice or Marianne, who was the sicklier of the two girls, out to walk with her when they were all sniffles and fevers as children. The boys, naturally the eldest, were the more robust and rarely grew ill. Marie-Elise owed it to the outdoors and the way they would their time loping through Cavaillon with their grandfather.

Ultimately, wherever it was they were destined to go, Alice could not at that moment find it within herself to worry after it. What she was painfully aware of was the critical stare of Ollie’s mother and she wanted to get out from under it at the most convenient opportunity. When he spoke her name, she did all she could to keep from bolting and with some dignity rose from her chair, murmuring her thanks for what she called “the most wonderful breakfast” that she’d had in the longest while. Naturally, Ariel being out of earshot made this an easier compliment to serve. She smiled briefly and took up her things, setting them almost hesitantly in the sink.

Before she could venture a question as to whether or not she was meant to wash anything up, Ollie’s hand closed around hers and she found herself being tugged into that crisp open air that thrummed with an absent humidity and a whisper of the mistral that made her think so fondly of home. She breathed it in deeply, growing dizzy with the fragrance of the trees and the flowers and the rich, heady scent of puddles of water mixing with dusty dirt as it baked in early morning sunshine.

“Ollie slow down,” she exclaimed as she tried to get her bearings, a struggle indeed while he pulled her along. Once he released her, she drew close to him, rubbing her hand across his upper arm before pressing her lips briefly to his shoulder in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. She found her feet properly, her shoes having not really been built for a not-so-grand escape from his childhood home, and took a minute to recapture her breath and take into account and store for memory the sights and sounds that beheld her. It was a quiet, residential street really but it bore all the markers of something much more like home. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it.

“Relax,” she soothed, lifting up her other hand to catch her fingers around his. “It’s alright. You can’t be so unforgiving of yourself. It is not a crime for wanting to breathe for a moment when otherwise you’d be swallowed up with sadness. It’s no good nursing pain and forgetting how to live without it. Death is easy for the dead, Ollie. It is the living that have to find a way to honour those we love and find a life without them, yet inextricably with them at the same time. Do not forsake a measure of happiness for the obligatory pain. That will come back in its own time. Tides that come out come in again, they always will. So while the water is absent, walk in the sand. It will come back to chill you to your very soul far sooner than you would either like or imagine. They will all forgive you for taking a moment for yourself. You are worthy of no blame.”

She took a breath and stepped back, finding a small smile for him. She smoothed her hand over the skirt of her dress and gathered her senses once more. Alice clasped her hands around his and tugged at him coaxingly, arching a blonde eyebrow at him as a wider smile reached across her lips.

“Come on then,” she encouraged him softly. “Walk in the sand with me. Show me where you grew up.”

According to Role Theory, we sort ourselves into categories - or, assigned groups - based upon the positions we believe we're meant to fill. Now, whether these are good or bad roles is entirely up to the person in question, provided someone doesn't give him or her a title they don't want. One could be termed a 'delinquent' when they themselves don't believe it, for example. But once the role is assigned, we naturally feel a need to prove that we are part of that section - rather than disprove it. It's far more difficult to disprove things, after all, so we start looking for ways that we could be a part of the role in question, and it almost always makes us believe that the role should, indeed, belong to us.

So, it made some sense that Oliver kept trying to back himself into a corner and prove that he belonged in the category he had given himself that morning, of "bastard." Clearly, he hadn't meant in the typical, only slightly less derogatory meaning of the word, though. He had more or less convinced himself, not to mention the interaction with his parents having added to the image, so Alice's words were rather like rain on an awning when it came to her roommate. He was listening, sure, but all he could think about was how perhaps she was the one who was meant to write, and not him. Only, if he didn't, what was he good at? It wasn't like he had done that well at Hogwarts, and he most certainly hadn't gone to University as he had intended to. No, that plan had been trashed during his final year at Hogwarts. Maybe if he had gone, Oliver wouldn't be a frustrated, two-book author with no apparent life purpose. But he probably wouldn't be living with Ariel or Alice if he had.

Oliver couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing, unfortunately. That is, unfortunate for him. Alice too, actually, considering he was more or less ignoring the point of her commentary. On the other hand, he was paying very close attention to her movements, and indeed his arm where she had pressed a kiss. His skin was still tingling, though it sounded quite ridiculous to say that about himself. A character in a book, sure, but he shouldn't have even been thinking about it.

His arms uncrossed themselves as she spoke, resting at his side until she gave a little pull to try and take him along with her for her walk. Stubborn feet, though, refused to move, and instead Oliver found himself using her built up momentum to draw her back towards him. One hand extracted itself from hers, and instead reached out to thread his fingers into her hair, easing her approach and softening the jolt when his lips met hers as they had (repeatedly) that morning. The kiss was hesitant at first, which was only right, but wasn't lengthy, as was also right. Frankly, he had no excuse for it, but he broke away just before a broken sort of smile curved his lips.

It didn't last long, either, the smile. It was more like a flash, or attempt at one, and it felt quite weak even as Oliver let it happen. His fingers traipsed across the back of her neck as he tried to will them away from her, but his other hand was still clinging to hers. The moment his smile ended, however, Oliver registered for the third time that day just how much he was playing into the idea he had set in his own head. He half felt like breaking down, canceling their walk, and holing himself up in Thalia's room for the day. But that wasn't sensible.

Like his kissing her without warning was? Hardly.

His brows tugged together a few times, just slightly, as he struggled with his own conscience. Alice must have thought him mad. The fingers at her neck curled towards his palm, desperately wanting to pull away but certain that if he did it would outright offend her. "I... babe, I'm..." Oliver hesitated, wishing briefly that they were back in bed so he could just hide when he said his next words. "I just feel lost. I tried not to, but I do. I am lost. I think I might have tried to use you as an anchor, and I shouldn't have. You don't need that." Pulling away fully, Oliver sank back into the greenery again, hands falling to his side. "This isn't me..."

The click of bones in her wrist crackled through the air as the blonde Bulgarian woman was drawn back, stumbling slightly against the chest of the man that had so naturally fallen into being her lover. His lips enveloped hers, setting her mind alight with sizzling electrolytes of feeling that spread down through her body and warmed her up. Her eyes slid shut and her hand reached up to grasp at his shoulder, his neck, his cheek, desperate to feel the energy and the warmth in his skin. Yet, at once it was over and she found herself dropping from her tiptoes back onto the pads of her feet. She stood back a bit, wiggling her fingers in his grasp as a smile played on her lips as they tingled, the feeling pricking across the surface and sending shivers through her.

His words bit through her like vengeful frost, stinging at her smack bang in the middle of her chest. She stole her hand back to her, burned, almost, by the oxymoronic touch. She shrugged out of his grasp a little more forcefully than the tenderness with which he endeavoured to move away would have indicated. She smudged her lips together as the words rumbled through her mind, dousing the lightness that he’d inspired with her and the surging, pounding of her heart that made something within her feel as though this was worth taking a chance on. All of it was dashed in a matter of words and she looked at him, stared really, her eyes flickering across his features in an attempt to distinguish some kind of bluff. Anything. Anything that would take his words away. But they were there, lingering between them, slicing into her skin and gauging out every good feeling she’d had. It was all gone.

The tide ebbed around her feet, swallowed up her calves, her thighs, her hips and slid up to her chest, past her shoulders to her neck before swallowing her whole. She felt tears splinter at the creases of her eyes. She shook them away and stared down at her shoes, wondering if they had been impractical walking shoes. She lifted her head, taking in a breath that caught on her throat and ripped a ghostly sob from within. She lifted her fingers to her lips and scrubbed at them, trying both to take away the feeling that still lingered and stifle any other involuntary exhibitions of the tumult welling up inside of her. She felt as though the water had invaded every crevice and sunk through her every cell. Inside-out she was drowning.

“N-no,” she uttered, the words catching her, emerging as a gasp. “I…” she dropped her hand and pulled at her necklace in an almost savage way that made the chain give a little, tugging at her neck as it tried to go with her apparent desire to steal it from around her. Her hands dropped and seized down at the hem of her skirt, her fingertips snapping at it, pulling it down in an unnecessary manner. It wasn’t too short. Almost, it seemed to suffocate her. She too large gulping breaths to try and steal herself but her chest heaved, her breasts pulsing upwards as her heart hammered against her ribcage. In vain she tried to find something, anything, else to look at. But she couldn’t. All she could see was him and how the space between them had rapidly, albeit metaphorical, ballooned to oceanic.

Was it all just retaliation, then? That was what she wanted to ask. Was it nothing but a reaction to a torrent of emotion that couldn’t be controlled, that had to be expelled somehow? The kiss at first she had denied him for that fear. That reason. That it didn’t mean anything. That it was circumstantial. That it was a moment in time. To hear it. To breathe it. To let it whisper against her ear, drip poison into the socket and let it pilfer the happiness, blacken it with misery – with the rising tide. She felt something within her flinch, almost snap. No, it snapped. Cracked. Fell to pieces. Pieces she lost somewhere as they tumbled within her, stabbing into her organs, piercing every good feeling and breaking it open, spilling its contents as though it was nothing. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? A coping mechanism. An anchor. A use. Her. That’s what she was. That was all.

“I’m not … I …” she closed her eyes, her brows furrowing. “I…” she glanced towards the garden gate and she took a step back from him. “I need to go back I…” she gulped a breath down. “I forgot my place.”

Who was she, after all? How could she have been so foolish? So impulsive. So darned hopeful in the aftermath. She felt the flutters. She could sense the strength of the feeling welling within her but there it was dashed and destroyed. She almost wished she hadn’t been so hopeful. She wished she hadn’t drawn him under the covers and been so bold. She wished she hadn’t come to depend on him. She wished that she could have been more than the anchor in the moment. She wished she could have been more important than that. But she wasn’t. So that was that.

Alice stood back another step and took a steady breath. She licked her lips and gathered herself, finding a weak smile for him. She cleared her throat and crossed her arms across her chest, clicking one foot against the other as she fought to gather her feelings. She couldn’t cry. Not yet. Not in front of him. She didn’t think she could bear that to lower her even more in his esteem. Because what had she done? She had equally taken advantage of him. Or, better, literally laid herself out for having. There wasn’t rhyme or reason to it, no matter which way her heart fluttered. It was just sex. To fill a moment. To stifle an emotion. It didn’t mean anything. No, it was just sex. Sure. It didn’t mean anything. She didn’t mean anything. She just staved off the feeling. And it didn't incite any, either.

“I … I am always … I always want to help…” She exhaled a little. “I always …. I don’t want … I don’t want you to be lost.”

But she’d forgotten her place. Alice turned as briskly as she could manage and hurried while still maintaining an air of collectedness back towards the house. She let herself back in the way they'd  went out and she leaned down briefly to tear off her shoes and she kept them in hand as she half ran, half stumbled back up the stairs towards their end of the house. Ariel she found inside, laid out on his bed, his hair askew and his glasses perched on the end of his nose as he read. Drawing back her arm she hurled her shoes at him with all of the venom and all of the strength she had within her. As they connected with his body, Ariel gave a yelp, losing grasp of the book as he tried to catch the shoes but all ended up clunking onto the floor as he ripped off his glasses and assaulted her with a scandalised, affronted glare.

“What the bloody hell was that for, you cow?” He exclaimed, throwing himself to his feet. The thunderous expression abated when he caught hold of hers, however, and he dropped the glasses, his hands reaching out to grasp for her upper arms. “Alice?” He probed, leaning down to affix her with a steady, imploring look. “Alice, what’s wrong?”

“You lied,” she gasped out. Ariel’s eyebrows shot to his forehead. “You lied to me,” she repeated. “You said he’d never hurt me, Ariel.”

She found herself being pulled roughly against his chest and the smoky scent of Ariel’s clothes and skin, muddled with the alcohol and the warmth of cooking that seemed to surround him invaded her senses. The tears she wanted to so desperately let go flowed freely, staining his jumper and as her sobs rose into the air he pulled her against him tighter, pressing kisses onto the crown of her head, whispering “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over and over to her.

“It hurts so much,” her words were muffled by the fabric, interspersed with her tears, her fingers grasped at him and he tightened his grip further, cradling in his embrace, his chin resting on the top of her head.

“I know,” he murmured, beginning to rub circles into her back. “I know.”

(ooc: The Third Door is the one between Ariel's room and the one Oliver stayed in. And either Ari or Alice are more than welcome to overhear, considering they're right there.)


Even as Alice stepped away and started speaking, Oliver was planning his escape. He didn't have to figure anything out, though, when Alice bolted back inside. Well. He clearly wasn't going back there right away.

He wasn't back by lunch time, which made sense to an extent. Especially to those who watched as Alice rushed upstairs with a look somewhere between horrified and lost. It was when he didn't come in for dinner that people started mumbling questions to each other when his roommates couldn't hear. They all knew he wouldn't have returned to England, but it wasn't like him to leave his family without word. It was when Minnie ran past Alice, though, complaining about Ollie not being there to say goodnight, that Gregory and Deborah exchanged truly worried looks.

Deb, for one, immediately wanted to turn to Oliver's roommates and ask if they knew anything. But she didn't dare believe they would know, when her son had got something in his head. Neither of them seemed settled, either, as far as she could tell.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until morning that a little shriek of surprise left Deborah's lips. Standing outside that third door to the right, she had opened the door to Thalia's room, only to find her son standing there, buttoning up his shirt. Of course, the outfit wasn't what caused the cry of distress - nor the fact that he had shocked her by reappearing. Instead, it was the fact that he hadn't covered his injuries from the night before. It might have been that she was just overly concerned, but Deborah felt strangely convinced that she could see the bruises darkening. Opening her mouth to ask after him, she stepped towards her son, only to be stopped.

"Don't."

His fingers worked to arrange his tie properly, and he simply stared at his reflection in the mirror as he did so. It was quite clear that he wasn't affected by his appearance - or, worse, in his mother's mind: what had obviously happened to him. It didn't even seem to faze him as he stood there, attempting to prepare for what the day would bring. "Don't ask," he clarified finally, turning to face her properly. It was just the one side of his face that was purpling along his cheekbone, the skin puffing below his eye, but he had never been the sort of child to fight with anybody, so seeing him do so as an adult was incredibly worrying.

"Oliver!"

Glancing past his mother's shoulder, the young man found Minnie standing there, gasping in shock as her lower lip quivered. His cold expression faded, and Oliver sank to the ground, squatting and holding a hand out towards her. She hesitated, then stepped around her aunt to take the hand he offered. Whispered questions about where he had been and what had happened left her lips, but Oliver just shook his head, brushing them off. "Today isn't about me."

"I think you need a day for you, too," she replied, reaching towards his cheek but pulling away before she actually made contact.

"No, that's okay," Oliver told her gently, standing and smoothing over her hair so she wouldn't think he was upset with her. After all, he did make quite the intimidating figure once he had lifted back to his full height and roughed up. "I don't get one, because I haven't earned it. I'm sure you'll get a Minnie day far sooner than I'll get one for me."

He wasn't, obviously, talking about Thalia's memorial anymore. Or memorials at all. He didn't want any cause for a day of looking back at Minnie's life any more than he wanted one for anybody else. The analogy had taken a right turn when he had expect it to be dropped, if not just go where he expected it to. No, the tone had changed from reflective on others to reflective on himself, and Oliver found his gaze flicking up to meet his mother's briefly. She looked somewhere between wanting to cry and wanting to give him a matching bruise on the other side. Something about him was wrong - had been since he'd arrived, really, if not long before. It just made everything much harder when his own parents couldn't decipher him anymore.

When Ariel Greyback turned over and opened his eyes, lifting his head partially out of the crook of his elbow, his bleary gaze fell upon the legs of the woman across the room who was slowly lifting a pair of silken stockings up to cover the long expanse of creamy skin interspersed here and there with freckles. He sucked in a breath and watched, his lids low over his glassy stare, as she slid up over those legs and across her broad hips a tight, black pencil skirt that took in every subtle arc of her lower body. He sat up a little, pushing up on his elbow, and watched, transfixed almost, as she dropped overhead a burgundy blouse. He took another breath in through his teeth and flicked his eyes back down to her legs, wondering ruefully why he insisted on being such a good friend to the pair who were so brutally at odds which each other. His hands twitched to take hold of her but he shoved them back underneath the covers as he turned onto his back, the whine of the mattress alerting the blonde witch to his wakefulness.

Alice turned, her fingers twisting a make-up brush idly and her lips, painted a soft pink, reached into a smile that Ariel wearily returned, a slight flush to his cheeks. She lifted up a hand and curled a stray lock of hair behind her ear before turning back to the mirror and beginning to play at her features with the brush. Ariel folded his arms behind his head and watched her for a while, content to observe how she was doing it. He paid special attention to what she applied to her eyes: a series of glamour charms covered by powders and creams and bits of dust and colour which eventually staved off the redness of her tears which had characterised their evening in the moments they had alone. She’d exhausted herself with it in the end and had abandoned her body in his embrace around her once she’d drifted off to sleep.

He was lucky he’d managed to get her into bed without waking her. Ariel, by that point, had lost the will to deal with anymore tears. He abhorred her crying and not just because he didn’t like tears or, in particular, seeing women cry but he especially loathed the utter helplessness that seemed to invade Alice’s features and nothing he could do abated it. He was glad when she finally gave up and slept. Half of him had wanted to go out and find Oliver and really ask what had gone on but his heart clung to her and he knew he had to stay lest she wake up alone so he lingered, reading into the small hours before, himself, dropping off to sleep. It was, he imagined, a slumber as fitful as hers. For, they all knew what this meant. It still felt mad to him. It must’ve for everyone else, too. It wasn’t something that happened to normal people. Especially not to wizards.

“You alright?” Ariel grunted, reaching over to the nightstand to take his glasses off of the surface. He dropped them onto his nose and looked at her idly, watching as she began to apply more lipstick. “Alice,” he prodded. “Alice, will you put down that god forsaken stuff and talk to me?”

“What, Ariel?” She snapped, whirling around to face him, her eyes narrowing into dark slits. “What do you think I could possibly have to say about any of this? It’s not important. In the grand scheme of things, the very reason why we’re here in the first place is the most important thing right now. Our own insignificant problems are the footnotes’ footnotes.” And with that said, she turned back and elected to continue with her make-up, only really succeeding in rousing the werewolf further from his pit.

“Don’t treat me like that,” he complained, getting up and taking his t-shirt from the floor. He pulled it over his head and moved to stand behind her, steadying his gaze stonily on her in the mirror. She looked up at him questioningly. “Are you okay, princess?” He repeated himself, lifting his hands to his shoulders. She gave a hesitant nod and Ariel sighed, squeezing her shoulders fondly. “It’s going to be alright, lass,” he promised her. “You’ll see.”

The pair set about getting ready for the day, Ariel stealing a shower while Alice continued to sort herself out. It was as the young woman extended her grasp to sort out his tie that the pair stalled, their ears pricking to listen as the sound of the shriek ripped through the floor. Ariel lifted himself out from underneath Alice’s grasp and he tugged her after him towards the door where he pressed his head against the wood. She lingered under his frame, her hands flush against the door and the pair listened intently to the exchange. When it became clear who the source of the anxiety was, Alice stole away as though she had been slapped and it was up to Ariel to distract her, encouraging her to comb out his hair and fix his tie – anything to take her mind off of it.

Eventually, when everyone else had dispersed, Ariel and Alice left the bedroom. He took her hand tightly within his own and helped her down the stairs. She didn’t need it but she smiled gratefully all the same and Ariel released her hand just as they entered the room where everyone was gathered, picking at their breakfasts. Alice managed to find a cup of coffee for herself and Ariel did the same before ducking out onto the patio to have a cigarette in the strangely apt, overcast morning air. She lingered by the door, sipping at the coffee and between them they shared a croissant, offering a few words to anyone who passed them. There was an unbearable solemnity to it all. Or perhaps it was just them. Maybe the misery was such that they were projecting it on everyone else.

“D’you want the end of this?” Ariel asked, offering the cigarette to Alice who shook her head and continued to sip at the tea. Ariel nodded and finished it off before rubbing it against the brickwork, bringing the butt inside to throw it away. He sighed a little and took up his coffee, bringing it back to his lips, before beginning to trace out the amount of tiles there were amidst the patio. Anything to distract him. To distract her. For a minute, to forget.