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「ςecilia → ℎooke」 ([info]cecilias) wrote in [info]valesco,
@ 2011-05-25 23:35:00


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Entry tags:cael gray, cecilia hooke

cael!
It was utterly pathetic to come to a bar alone. This was a fact of life to which Cecilia had subscribed fiercely for much of her existence... that was, until she had become pathetic herself. Now, such entertainment was a passable way to spend an evening, even if dwelling upon the idea of how she must have looked was less than desirable.

Either way, she had to get her fix. And who did she have left to accompany her? Between having either disgraced or chased off most of her family, the love of her life being killed, his memory driving her away from spending time near his sister, her closest friends otherwise being locked up in prison, and the man she was supposed to marry to get over all of it run off and engaged to a disgusting halfblood, really Cecilia did not have much left. It was her own fault, maybe, for having made the decisions she had. Maybe it was a string of terrible luck.

All she knew was that it left her becoming a woman that just a year before she would have despised--the lonely girl at the end of the bar.

Well, if anything, at least she had come out of it a little less judgemental.

Tilting her head back, she finished off the glass and pursed her lips together, setting the empty vessel back atop the wood. Without having to say a word, Albert--the bartender, that was.. she knew this one by name--refilled it instantly. It was still quite early in the evening, but she knew that the faster she drank, the quicker it would pass. With that in her head, she began on her second...



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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-26 03:46 am UTC (link)
He smirked at her, giving a nod of his head.

“What kinda man would I be if I kept somethin’ like that to myself?”

He kept his posture leaned towards her, and kept his eyes on her before his attention was dragged away from her, thanks to one of his friends nudging him in the side, raising their brows at him in a ‘what the hell is going on?’ sort of way. Cael gave his own half-assed interpretation, saying that there was just a bit of a misunderstanding. The ones who were around him who spoke English snickered a little, but the blonde didn’t pay any mind to it, and gnawed thoughtfully at the corner of his bottom lip, choosing his words carefully.

“Would ya care to join us?” His offer was sincere, but because he doubted she would go for it, he added this as well. “I was just about to step outside for a smoke, myself…but I’m sure the resta the boys would prefer your company over mine any day.” He was hoping she would catch the hidden invitation to join him alone outside, while also hoping she would mention something about wanting to get some fresh air, or something of the like.

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-26 10:29 pm UTC (link)
It was strange... The whole time that she had been talking to this man, Cecilia had been trying to place his face. For some reason or another, he seemed fairly familiar. It was possible he was the son of some well-to-do family not quite socially elite enough to have warranted an introduction. After all, most people whom she only vaguely remembered could be attributed to people she had seen around parties and whatnot.

But no, there was something that said this was not the case with him. It wasn't just the foreign friends, either, although that was an interesting attribute to note.

Oh well. She could think about it more later if she decided she really cared that much--which she certainly wouldn't. Now she was getting a hint that tall dark stranger man was not-so-subtly asking her to join him outside, and... Ahh, this seemed like a bad idea. At least three drinks worth of a bad idea, which, fortunately for him, she was just about to finish.

Throwing back the rest of her glass, Cecilia set it down on the counter and pushed herself away from the bar. "I have a feeling that the company of many foreigners would be lost on a simple English-speaker," she told him. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd fancy a smoke as well."

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-26 11:13 pm UTC (link)
Cael tried to fight back another smile when she replied, shaking his head a little. “Wouldn’t mind at all.” He leaned back away from the table, reaching for his beer so he could take another long swig, right before pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. A few of the guys perked up to question about where he was running off to, hoping to get answers from one of the other men who knew what was going on, seeing how Cael was already walking around the table, approaching the brunette. Now that he was standing beside her, it was impossible to not notice their height difference – about 5 inches, give or take. Cael wasn’t short, but he wasn’t monstrously tall, either.

They walked to the door, and he would push it open before holding it open for her, sweeping his arm forward. “After you.” Perhaps a little showy, but he had been raised to be a gentleman and hold open doors for women, and pull out their chairs, and all that good stuff. It definitely had a lot to do with the respect he had for women in general, but it was also one of those things that had been engraved into his mind from day one.

After she climbed down the few steps that led to the bar, he followed behind. The fresh air hit him, and suddenly all the shots he had taken earlier came rushing back to him, and one of his hands came up to run back and forth through his hair as he leaned his back against the wall, hoping that he wasn’t about to have some sort of episode because of high blood sugar.

That was always fun to explain to people. Especially to pretty strangers he met at a bar.

Reaching into the pocket of the zip-up hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, he removed the pack of cigarettes that had been stored there all night, and removed two from the pack (he hadn’t seen her reach for hers yet), placing them between his lips before reaching for his lighter. Both of them were lit, and once the Zippo was back in its rightful place in his back jean pocket, he removed one of the toxic sticks in order to offer it to her, taking a drag from the one that was still in his mouth. His free hand plucked it from his lips, holding the smoke in his lungs, wisps of gray following his words.

“So…come here often?”

Before she even had a chance to roll her eyes, which he absolutely expected, he gave her another one of those charming smiles, knowing full well that line was one of the worst lines to use anywhere. He just wanted to get her talking, since he was better at back and forth banter than he was at carrying an entire conversation on his own.

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-26 11:48 pm UTC (link)
"Not terribly," she lied easily.

Taking a long drag on the proffered cigarette, Cecilia let the calming smoke overtake her before slowly blowing it out. It was the same thing she told every man who dared to ask her company in this place--of course she did not come here often. Such a thing was unbecoming of a woman of her stature. She may have taken a heavy fall from grace following Evan and Donovan's respective exits from her life, but it did not mean that she wished to advertise that to the general public. It was why she also ventured to amuse any man such as this who wished to pretend he was an A-class ladies man by picking her up.

But no one, especially not some pretty stranger, had the right to know the first thing about her life.

"The clientele are a bit boorish, wouldn't you say?" That said, anywhere classier would have ended her in the sights of the pureblood society she so wished to avoid. It was either crude company, or public embarrassment--she hadn't really yet decided which was worse. "I just felt like getting out tonight."

Peering out of the side of her vision, Cecilia watched the stranger just as he sent her a smile that she assumed he felt was charming--Well, alright, it wasn't terribly uncharming. A couple of years ago, she might have found him very charming, in fact.

A lot of things had changed in a couple of years. These days, such things were borderline unamusing altogether, although she certainly wasn't one to let that on. She enjoyed talking up men to pretend she wasn't lonely... nothing more. They meant nothing to her--or at least she had sworn that no man would mean anything to her again. It was all more trouble than it was worth.

"And yourself?" she asked. "Are you visiting from out of town?"

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-27 12:43 am UTC (link)
One of his brows twitched up with interest at the reply, shifting his shoulder blades to become more comfortable against the hard brick wall he was still using to keep himself propped up. Just as she felt with him, he kept getting this idea brewing in the back of his mind that he definitely knew this girl – he didn’t think he could forget a face like hers, but he had also been gone for 3 years, and things (and people) had been much different back before he had moved away.

The word ‘boorish’ wasn’t one he heard all too often, but the way she said it gave him the impression that it wasn’t too infrequent in her vocabulary. He just shrugged his shoulder, when asked his own opinion on the matter.

“Depends on the night.”

When the question was turned around on him, as well as the additional question, he smirked before shaking his head.

“Yes….and no.”

He took a drag of his cigarette, and then flicked the ashes down to the cement beneath him, blowing out the smoke in the opposite direction away from her, but his eyes traveled back over to her.

“Those guys inside, they went to school with me at Durmstrang. I used’ta live ‘round here and I just moved back, so they came out to be among the boorish clientele to celebrate me gettin’ my own place, and comin’ back home.”

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-27 05:10 am UTC (link)
Ah, a Durmstrang graduate... That was certainly uncommon, although she had met her fair share of them among sons of wealthy families who felt less than adoringly about Albus Dumbledore's administration at Hogwarts. That answered it, then. Whoever this young man was, it was most certain now that he was simply someone she had seen in passing or to whom she had been nonchalantly introduced during some social function.

Again, not that she cared. It was nothing more than simple curiosity.

"I see," she acknowledged, listening carefully. Casually, she leaned backwards into the wall behind her and blew a puff of smoke up into the darkening sky above. "That would explain the brogue." He did speak very heavily, now that she came to think of it--she supposed she had been so convinced that he was foreign that she did not immediately recognize the Scottish speech characteristics for what they were.

Herself, she couldn't admit to being a large fan of the highly uneducated accent. Something about this man's, however, seemed less offensive than normal. That was to say, he seemed not to be a complete heathen.

Not feeling entirely inclined to draw herself into his attempts to be charming again, Cecilia continued to stare into the stars as she listened to him carry on. However, it was clear from the focused nature of her gaze that she was not paying any less attention--certainly, she picked up on his mocking of her use of vocabulary.

Oh, that was right. Somehow, she had nearly forgotten she was conversing with a plebian.

"It's very kind of them to see you back home," she commented, ignoring the jab. "Unfortunately, I am not so worldly in my education. Then again, to have spent my school years outside of Slytherin house, much less Hogwarts, would have simply been unacceptable."

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-27 10:05 pm UTC (link)
Huh. She’s one of those.

The thought ran through his mind the moment she mentioned that she had come from Slytherin house, and how unacceptable it would have been for her to be schooled elsewhere. Again, he got the pang of familiarity – they had to have gone to school together, since she didn’t appear to be much older or younger than he was, and he had been at that school for six years of his life. He just smiled, and looked down to watch the cigarette roll between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Well, I don’t think my parents mind much…seein’ how my Mum is a professor over at Durmstrang.”

He looked back to her before he lifted the smoking drug to his lips, taking a drag before returning his baby-blue gaze back to the petite brunette at his side.

“I know quite a few people who went to Hogwarts. The Slytherins I’ve met are…well, they’re certainly interesting.”

He’d leave it at that, not wanting to ruffle her feathers.

“Were you a fan of school?”

An innocent enough question, merely curious about how she felt about Hogwarts. It also gave him a chance to know her a little bit better, since there was definitely something about her that made him want to know more. Maybe it was that confusing familiarity, or maybe it was the way she looked like a young woman with a dark past, and he was morbidly curious.

She was also exceptionally beautiful, which definitely helped.

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-27 10:35 pm UTC (link)
She perked up slightly at hearing him express his familiarity with Hogwarts, although she supposed it wasn't strange at all--especially not if he knew Slytherins. Again, it had become a trend in pureblood households after Dumbledore's rise to power to send their children to Durmstrang as a happy alternate to the rules of Hogwarts, which allowed mudbloods to roam the halls as freely as anyone else. Maybe it was possible they had something to talk about after all... She would have liked to reminisce about the friends she no longer had with someone else who had gotten the pleasure of knowing them.

Then again, his words didn't sound too terribly fond when he referred to her alma mater. Maybe it was possible that he was not one who rode with the same crowd as she.

"A fan?" she asked, unable to hide a look of light surprise at the question. Well, that was certainly a different way of wording it. What did she feel about Hogwarts, anyway? It wasn't as if she had ever really questioned such a thing.

Carefully, she rolled the words around in her mouth before speaking. "I suppose it was not horrible," she began. "I met many good people there... Many good people came out of that school, out of my house. I suppose if I was not a fan of the school, I was at least a fan of those whom I met by attending."

It was a sad subject, she thought. It was vague, but she imagined the look on her face must have betrayed something. If it hadn't, then she must not have cared as much for Evan, for Antonin and Barty and Kalista, and for all the others as much as she believed she did.

Yes, she had met many wonderful people there.

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-28 12:05 am UTC (link)
He liked the way she answered, since it was fair and honest, but he definitely did notice that there was a feeling of nostalgia in the way she spoke. He stayed quiet for a beat, simply watching her – he wasn’t leering, he was just trying to figure her out.

“I know the feelin’. Some’a the closest friends I have, I met at school. Can’t say I always enjoyed the classes, but they say that “Durmstrang” translates into “storm and stress”, so…that may explain my animosity.”

He shrugged a shoulder, and then shifted once again against the wall. He’d go quiet again, just curious as to whether or not she would try to carry on a conversation or take on the initiative to start one of her own.

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-28 12:53 am UTC (link)
She nodded quietly, listening to him and his affirmation, but also trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling she suddenly got realizing that she had let off more than she meant to. Could she be blamed for a slip? While it was inconvenient to say such things without realizing them, she didn't think she could have answered the question in much other way. Still, the last thing she wanted to do was make some stranger think she was trying to get all sentimental and confide something in him. Men seemed to take that as meaning one liked them, and she certainly was not there to make any of these strangers think such a stupid thing.

It was time for a change of subject. She needed to grope her way back to safer ground quickly.

As she dropped the final smoldering remains of her fag to the ground and rotated the toe of her right pump to put it out, she finally looked up to his face again.

"I've just realized I never asked your name," she said, as if she were mildly surprised with herself. She wasn't, of course. Extending her hand, she smiled in rehearsed pleasantness. "I'm Cecilia Hooke. Thanks for the smoke."

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-28 01:14 am UTC (link)
He had started staring at a random crack in the cement beneath him, just about to take the last drag of his cigarette before her voice caught his attention, brows raising with interest before he smirked at her realization, taking the last drag while also straightening up, blowing the smoke away from her as he flicked his own cigarette butt to the side, turning back just in time to extend his free hand out to take hold of her smaller version, giving it a firm shake – the worst impression to make on anyone was to give them a dead fish handshake. That said a lot about a person.

Cecilia Hooke…he had definitely heard the name somewhere. So she looked familiar, and her name sounded familiar, which only meant he had to know her. His assumption was from Hogwarts, but he didn’t remember which part – if they had been in a class together, or if maybe he just knew about her through one of his friends.

“Cael Gray…and you’re very welcome.”

Dropping his hand down he gestured over to the door.

“How about I walk ya back inside? That way, you can either take your place by yourself at the bar, or, you can take me up on that offer from before.”

He let it be her choice, obviously hoping she would choose to join them, but he wasn’t holding his breath. IF she was a Slytherin, and used the word ‘boorish’, she probably didn’t like boisterous crowds - especially boisterous crowds of drunk men who only half-spoke English, and that was speaking for only half of the group. Still, the offer was out there. It left her another option, if she found she didn’t feel very much like sitting by herself.

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[info]cecilias
2011-05-28 02:29 am UTC (link)
The name struck a bell, but at this point it was no surprise. Cecilia knew she knew him from somewhere, and that was all that she was going to get out of it. She had simply met too many people in her life to dedicate part of her brain to remembering every last one of them, especially those whom she knew she had not seen for years.

Even if they were fairly handsome and charming.

Pushing away from the wall, she smiled lightly at him. No, as much as she would have liked to afford herself the company of many handsome and foreign men, something in the back of her mind said that accepting the invitation with this particular man was a bad idea. Of course she might have fun, but therein lay the issue--considering that she had already let on more hints about herself than she did with her normal company at this bar, the idea of continuing to talk to him with the added benefit of more alcohol was not the most intelligent choice.

She had done well to keep herself cut off to the rest of the world, effectively keeping everyone out of the steel wall of personal boundaries she had put up. Something about this man said that her well-kept privacy was in danger the longer they spoke, and she could simply not have that.

"You know what, I think it's time for me to leave," she lied again, sending him her best sorry smile. In fact, she was sorry to leave, for whatever reason... Which was exactly the issue. "I'm meeting a friend later tonight and probably should get going. But it was a pleasure meeting you."

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[info]thegraychampion
2011-05-28 02:40 am UTC (link)
He scrunched his nose, an expression of mild disappointment that quickly melted away as he smirked down at her, giving her a nod of his head to show he understood. “Yeah, I wouldn’t wanna keep you. And the feeling is mutual.” He had a feeling that she was just lying to him, but he wasn’t going to hold it against her.

As she started to walk away, Cael climbed the stairs back up to the bar, but stopped so he could turn and catch her attention before she got too far.

“Cecilia.”

He waited until she acknowledged the calling of her name, and he looked at her and smiled softly.

“Have fun.”

It was a suggestion as well as a hope that she actually would, even if she may not have even been going off to see this ‘friend’ of hers.

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