Because This Isn't Awkward

Jack needed to escape the castle, but she was aching from Quidditch practice the day before. She was still working on a team, as the new captain, but that did not stop her from practicing on her own. So she was not up for Quidditch at the moment, but the crowds inside were getting her irritable.

So she made her way down towards the lake, the huge Durmstrang ship hulking over her as she walked by, peering up at it as though she could see those students who were in the running as her competitors. She was determined to become Hogwarts champion and if not. Well... she had Quidditch.

She walked past the ship, not in the mood to be ogled by a bunch of foreigns, unless she was doing some sort of prank. But she was not even in the mood for a prank. She was worn out, from fighting with teachers, fighting with students, fighting with her friends... Or well... She was not sure she really had friends.

She shook her head, scolding herself for letting herself get caught up in the petty, student drama. She should not be wasting any thoughts on anything of the sort. No, she should focus her brain on pranks, and Quidditch plays, and the tournament, and... well, basically anything else.

She went and settled down on the bank, pulling a Fanged Frizbee out of her bag, twirling it in her hand for a moment. Finally she threw it and watched it zip about over the lake, coming back and rebounding off a tree, zig zagging in crazy patterns around her. She, however, stared at the ripples of the lake. She needed chaos around ehr to be able to think...

To relax meant to open the bottle of Firewhisky stashed between a book of rum recipes and a pair of stockings he’d found tied to his bedpost in Paris one morning. He was sure they were a token he was meant to remember Sally, Sophie, Sarah or Dina by but he couldn’t even remember what she smelt like. The stockings were a deep blue colour though, with golden embroidery. It would have been a crime to do away with them.

To relax also meant to go into Duff Town and buy a couple of packets of cigarettes. Well, Elijah had already done that so perhaps relaxation was well on its way. A lot of things had gone down the drain but the cigarettes kept him from losing his mind. Well technically the cigarettes kept him from finding the Fire Whisky and it kept that devil monster quiet and content. Elijah didn’t want to play up to the little nicotine being in his mind but they both needed the relief. He was immensely glad he’d missed Transfiguration. Flirting with the cashier had taken some work but he’d done it and he had gotten eight packs of twenty to stash in his bedside door.

Twice he’d been down there now and the pile had grown. He’d gone through a number of different cashiers during the days having spent one day in the actual town and now he had enough to last him the year providing he didn’t start smoking as much as he used to which was easily two packets a day. The good thing was that he was being practical again. He got up, had a cigarette, had a shower and had breakfast in the kitchens. He then had cigarette before first lesson and then would go straight through until the evening.

Elijah was currently out in the grounds, sitting on the back of one of the gargoyles. His back was resting up against the castle wall and a trail of smoke was rising above him. He made short work of the cigarette and to avoid lighting another one; Elijah slipped off of the gargoyle and began to walk down towards the lake. Little did he know he’d stumble across a Fanged Frizbee and a Gryffindor wearing a familiar face.

“You do know Fanged Frizbee’s are banned don’t you?” Elijah drawled, stopping near Jack, watching the item with his eyes. “I’d put my ‘privileges’ to use but where would the fun be in that?"

Jack had been expecting to stay out alone, probably until she was late for something, maybe until it was too dark to see the reflection of the lake. Point being, she had not planned on being interrupted. She did not have the capacity nor the tolerance to deal with people, so she had thought I'll be good and remove myself from the masses so as to avoid unnecessary casualties.

But it seemed that the universe liked to test Jack Dyllan. Or maybe it was not the work of the universe and was instead the work or hormonal teenagers who were just "aching for a breaking." Her brother had always used that phrase, referring to people who seemed to be out looking for trouble. It seemed everyone Jack knew could be described with that phrase.

She heard a voice, almost make a threat. "Yeah, what are you gonna do about-" She turned and looked up to see that it was Elijah Krum. Oh. She clamped her mouth shut, looking away, her mind unwillingly beginning to change gears. Well, this was quite a different little change of events, now wasn't it. Beautiful. B-E-A-freaking-utiful.

She had no idea how to treat this guy. Had he knocked up anyone but Chase, she may have made some snide remarks and just left him to his own devices. They had never got on well, nor got on poorly, just sort of... got along. But since such a time, he had also become the lover of her ex-best friend or whatever Chase was and had also gotten her pregnant. And Jack had also yelled at said pregger. So, Jack really had no idea how she was supposed to treat Elijah.

In truth, she did not know how she even WANTED to treat him let alone how she was SUPPOSED to. Jack rarely did what she was supposed to as it was. She thought he and Chase must both be stupid to let such a thing happen, though she thought Chase had to be more at fault. Girls were supposed to know, they were supposed to be more responsible. But Jack could not help feel guilty. She had yelled at her pregnant friend... And Jack was still rather loyal, even to people who she probably should not show loyalty for.

So you could say she was a little conflicted.

She crossed her arms, but put on a smirk, her eyes cold and still not looking at Elijah. "That's very kind of you," she said in a sarcastic voice. "I suppose your alcohol and cigarettes are banned, but it's cool because of those very privileges, eh?" She would not be snide and rude to him about the pregnancy, just everything else. Here was the reoccurring pattern in her life. A cordial relationship turned to dirt because of a situation she could not control.

Beautiful.

The notorious Gryffindor prankster wasn’t going to take any crap from him. Elijah wasn’t exactly the most conventional ‘rule enforcer’. Majere had said himself that day on the Quidditch pitch that smoking wasn’t exactly enforcing the rules. Smoking was banned apparently – who knew? But it wasn’t exactly hurting anyone unless you counted that nut from Gryffindor that passed out in the Three Broomsticks. She was weird.

The amusing part was that this was the only time he’d actually thought about punishing someone. He actually preferred the mayhem because it meant that James Wake was running around after everyone. It kept him amused and the students taking part in the charade. Plus, Doyle didn’t really care for the Imperium Squad. That was Majere’s forte and with Majere gone their authority was waning, waning fast.

But there was still Quidditch, not that that was much fun. Actually it was just a massive waste of time. Viktor and Marina were ‘pleased’ that he’d been made a captain but he’d not really given it much thought. He’d posted the sign up form and he needed a couple of chasers, if he remembered rightly. Then the training could start. Elijah did plan on putting that off for as long as possible.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Elijah smirked. “How are you?” Elijah lowered himself down onto the grass and crossed his legs. He put his hands behind him and leaned back, lazily observing the redhead.

Jack scoffed at what he said, finding more and more reasons to be irritable with Elijah. How was it fair that a rulebreaker got to have authority over other rulebreakers. Obviously, Jack was not a fan of the Imperium Squad, but everyone had their place. At least she could respect Amelia and James and all those on the Squad who actually believed what they enforced. Jack would never join the Imperium Squad, because it was not true to her. She would not become a hypocrite as quickly as Elijah would.

She did not like the way he was looking at her either. Jack did not enjoy people as it was, but she definitely did not like people looking at her like they were sizing her up. She did that, but she did not like it done to her. She would prefer someone looking at her with pure hatred than the way Elijah lazily watched her, as though he was too cool for... for something.

She may have realized she was be slightly irrational had she been more rational, but she wanted an excuse to be irritated with Elijah. Her conscience was clearly not going to let her get mad at him for the things she had yelled at Chase for; she already had her second thoughts at even shouting them at Chase. She should not set herself up for more shame and guilt. So she was quickly coming up with any and every excuse to be a royal pain in the ass to Elijah.

"Perfect," she said in response to his question. She was not exactly sarcastic the way she said it, but there was a poison in her voice that dared him to think otherwise. "I am just perfect. My life could not get any better." She was still determinedly looking across the lake rather than at him. She was not one of his fangirls that ogled him, and to stare away from him made this painstakingly clear. "I'm writing a book. My Perfect Life and Me. It'll probably be a best seller, because that would make everything even more damn perfect." She nodded, her jaw set, an angry fire in her eyes, though everything else said she was calm, cool, and collected.

There was definitely something irking Jack. Her bitter, sarcastic tone was providing the sceptics with a reason to doubt her words. Someone with lesser intelligence would have believed every word. They would have lapped it up like a cat would milk. But despite the fact that Elijah didn’t know much about Jack, he could apply what he knew about humans to her attitude and her distaste for him which puzzled Elijah.

Jack wasn’t someone Elijah would have considered courting or shagging or whatever you want to call it. She was a diamond in the rough but he didn’t like her that way. The feeling was mutual but he thought, like with the case of Julia, that they could at least be friends. Clearly that wasn’t to be the case, especially now that he’d knocked up her ex-best friend. It was quite ironic really.

Perhaps she would brighten up a bit but he doubted it. Elijah leaned back onto his forearms and looked over at the ship. His eyes narrowed almost instantly and he shook his head, averting his eyes.

“I do look forward to reading it,” Elijah remarked dryly, “Perhaps they’ll even ask for a sequel.” He reached up and pushed some of his hair out of his eyes. “You know,” He continued, dropping his hand back onto the grass, “You could treat me a little better. Have I ever treated you with anything other than kindness?”

Jack pursed her lips; usually such witty banter would have amused her, seeing as she communicated better with sarcasm and jokes rather than light conversation and pleasantries. But she was not in the mood for banter, for banter suggested friendliness, and at the moment, Jack did not want to be friendly to anyone. At the moment, no one was worth being nice too.

Perhaps she was being petty or stupid or hormonal, or what have you. But Jack felt wronged by everyone who got near her. By Vito, for several obvious reasons. By Andrew, for treating her like a friend and abandoning her. By her family, for refusing to care. And by Chase, for becoming her friend just to use her for sympathy for the problems she caused herself, but not even trusting her enough to let Jack take a role in her life other than a dry shoulder to cry on.

So yeah, Jack was not thrilled to see another person trying to barge into her life, especially one who had already began to interfere with the delicate balance in her life that always managed to be terribly lopsided and skewed.

At his words, she said in a rather defensive voice, she said, "Hm, some of the things I heard you say on the train were not exactly kind." She had distinctly heard him call her a name, and though names rarely bothered her (she was much to used to them) she used this to justify her response and prove him wrong. Her life often revolved around proving others wrong...

"And I apologize for not being thrilled to see you," she said in a rather poisonous voice. "I have some notions in my head that tell me you may not be the best person to begin including in my life." She did not know what role he had assumed in Chase's life and either way it irked her. If he had left her, she was angry with him. But if he had stayed, Chase was continuing to live her perfectly tragic, yet oddly lovely little life that she always complained about. Either way, Jack knew she had no part of it.

Elijah wanted to yell “Moo-dy!” at Jack. She was haughty and proud anyway but today she was just being needlessly disagreeable. He didn’t have anything against her – actually he quite liked her – but they had conflicting personalities. Nethertheless he liked her and thought she was a nice girl when she wasn’t being a cow – like now for example. But redheads, Elijah found, had a few more volumes than brunettes and blondes and usually those volumes were furious and louder than loud.

Her words confused Elijah though. The train ride had been a long time ago and wasn’t an experience Elijah wanted to relive again. It had been most distressing in more ways than one. The First Years had irritated him before he’d even gotten on the train but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he’d said to her. She was clearly irritated but he didn’t recall saying anything disrespectful. If he had then he definitely hadn’t meant to. Some things still slipped out. But Elijah had decided long ago that he was past the Mudblood thing. He didn’t believe he’d have gone back there. That’s the only real insult he could think of for Jack. It was a classic – playing up on her blood status.

She was bluffing, he decided, trying to get a rise out of him. Although how this would provoke him he wasn’t exactly sure but he didn’t doubt that she was trying to provoke him. But he wasn’t entirely sure she was bluffing. He’d decided she was but he did doubt himself slightly. He was averse to letting things like that slip out but that didn’t mean he didn’t let it happen sometimes. Mudblood would slip out if he was in the company of his mother too long along with a string of other insults. He hadn’t been near his mother that summer though and every time such a thing slipped out he was horrified and embarrassed. Growing out of things that were drilled into you was incredibly difficult.

“Do tell, Jack,” he said good-naturedly, staring up at the sky, “What was it that I said...was it really that awful?”

Elijah sat up a little more and looked at Jack hard, a spark of irritation in her eyes. “You’re preconceived notions about me are what you’re basing my character on. Your notions are next to nothing to go on. What do you really know about me?” He asked harshly. He truly wanted to know. She always seemed so cold...so distant ... so...so disgusted with him all of the time. He was sure she was basing all of this on what she’d heard, what she assumed and everything she thought she knew about his family and about him. He wanted to know what she really knew.

She was hating that he sounded so casual and almost polite as he asked her what it was that had offended her. It pissed her off that she was not being given more opportunity to not like the boy sitting before her, because she really wanted to dislike someone at the moment. She was done with caring for people who would hurt her. She was going back to pushing them away before they could get close enough.

"Does the phrase 'moody cow' ring any sort of bells, or are you so used to thinking these things and calling people names that they all run together." Now, the insult had happened, but the rest was total conjecture. Jack did have a wariness towards the 'popular crowd' as it was, because she and them had always been sort of butting heads, and Elijah was definitely one of them. Then there was the discomfort she felt around people like Elijah, who were known for their sexual exploits and multiple relationships. Jack was basically shut off to those types of people, so she did not know how to even deal with them.

He asked what she knew of him and she winced, realizing something she would not be admitting if she could help it. She was treating him the way she assumed other's treated her- judging before they even got to know their true nature. She quickly grasped for the things she knew. He smoke, he drank, he slept around. She did not associate herself with those types of people!

...Shit. Vito.

She pushed that aside. Well, he had knocked up Chase, insinuating that he was irresponsible and stupid. But, he had decided to stay with her... indicating responsibility. There was always the chance that he would leave her... but that was stupid of her to assume... So that left her with stupidity. Before more evidence piled up against that, leaving her with nothing, she firmly secured that his main fault of being a silly, hormonal teenager justified her anger. "Enough." It did not sound convincing to even her.

Moody cow....now he thought about it that not only sounded like him but it was a brilliant way to describe her. She was moody, not always a cow but she was a moody cow when she was in a mood. But he referred to his cousin as a moody cow on a fair few occasions. She’d obviously got him back, the blows to his nether regions being heard evidence of that. The girl had one heck of a kick. Bruised balls were what he’d ended up with but he didn’t learn from his mistakes. Elisabeth’s foot and his testicles were now well established enemies but every time it happened he couldn’t help but laugh through his tears at the absurdity of the situation. She’d huff and flounce off, flipping her hair behind her, and it would be the twins that would pull Elijah onto his feet again, both wearing the same grin.

But when Jack spoke it did come back to him ...his words... and it was funny. He chuckled, remembering the train journey and the phrase that went with it. She was obviously holding it against him which was a typical woman thing to do. A lot of females held a number of different things against him. Sadie hated him for turning her daughter into a model. She hated him for making money out of her daughter’s beauty and ultimately she hated him for taking her daughter away from her. Elijah still admonished that it was Camille that came to him, and it had been, but Sadie refused to believe that her ‘little girl’ would so willingly go to one of the most unconventional yet one of, if not the, most popular arts in Paris for help.

“Actually I find I make valid points. If you weren’t as cold as a flipping block of ice then maybe I wouldn’t have to resort to South London slang to voice my...opinions...” Elijah said after a few moments of thought.

Her next sentence was short and sweet yet Elijah had no intention of dropping it. He might have called Jack a ‘moody cow’ but he sure as hell wasn’t wrong if this was any indication of her character. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her so they were on the same level yet he didn’t base his opinion of her on rumours. He didn’t think of her as some sort of playground terrorist or whatever Wilson’s choice of words would be. He’d wanted to figure Jack out like he’d done so many other people but she was like a sharper version of Amelia, just as closed off but more brittle and there were a hell of a lot more guards with pointy swords.

“Let’s see if we can figure me out, huh?” He suggested, his tone sarcastic. “I don’t know anything about you...well...I tell a lie...it’s not much but it’s made me wonder. You know nothing about me apart from the fact that I am poisoning my body with various vices I have no intention of giving up and I have an unhealthy obsession with the female body and sex in general. That’s...partly it and is probably why I should get therapy or something equally...maybe some self-help books. Oh – and I knocked up your ex-best friend. Bun in the oven, all that jazz. So that probably irritates the hell out of you. It makes you angry. Chase has been so stupid...blah..blah..blah... whoring herself around and now this is what she get’s. But am I any different?

Probably not, except I don’t have to worry about getting myself pregnant. More...someone else. So BAM...here’s Chase and this little thing that’s there for 9 months or so and you’re feeling incredibly inadequate because not only do you feel guilty about yelling at her but also for deserting her and perhaps maybe also siding with the man who killed her parents. Vito...poltergeist...all around nice guy if you put him in a bunny suit and don’t let him get within fifty feet of you. But if you’ve got half a brain then you’d treat him the way you would an Asp. You don’t go near it, you don’t even think about touching it and you run away as fast as your little legs will carry you. I guess you’ve all made that mistake... no doubt if he and I met we’d have lots to talk about. Perhaps we could have a double date. You and your ex-best friends’ parents’ murderer and me and Chase. Dinner would come with some riveting discussion...Well what do you know...we’ve made dinner plans. Ironically I’ve been exploring your psyche...explore mine!” Elijah rolled over onto his stomach and rested his head in his hands. He swung his legs up like a fourteen-year-old would while gossiping with their friends and he looked at Jack, waiting for her to talk.