WHO: Cecilia Hooke & Evan Rosier
WHAT: Serious conversations.
WHEN: Backdated to the last Nick & Cecilia thread.
WHERE: Evan's flat
Not even six p.m. and she looked a tossled mess.
She was close to drunk on the opened bottle of tequila she'd bought, and had been sitting, consuming it pathetically in front of the market where she'd had her explosive confrontation with her brother thirty minutes earlier. She looked nowhere near the girl that had not so long ago been ready to go spend a nice night with her boyfriend. She didn't look or feel like Cecilia Hooke at all, and truth be told, she rather wished that she wasn't.
The fight with Nick had sent her reeling, an unfamiliar feeling altogether, but especially so coming from an argument with him. In the months since he'd been disowned, Cecilia had become good at acting as if she didn't give a shit when they argued, acting like she didn't care about him or anything he said--but this had been different. She had almost broken in front of him, and she was almost sure that she would have if he hadn't left when he did.
Curse him, Cecilia just couldn't get that bastard or his words out of her head for all the long minutes she sat there, for all the long moments it took to walk--she had to buy time--to Evan's flat, and even as she finally, extremely belatedly, knocked off his door, the face of her traitorous brother was in the forefront of her mind.
She didn't know why she'd gone to Evan, of all people. He was the last person she wanted to see messed up like this--
he was the one that was messed up,
she was supposed to be composed--but where else was there, really? Home? Her parents would scream in outrage if she so much as mentioned Nick, and even more, they'd freak out at how she looked, how she'd been drinking. Adamina's? Even worse, she'd just try to feed her lines about how great Nick was and--Evan's, it was the only place she could go, as much as she hated this. In the last seconds leading up to him opening the door, she hoped frantically that he wouldn't be there, but the moment his face came into view, Cecilia didn't care anymore and she was sobbing with her arms thrown around him.
He had been sitting in his living room, slouched down into one of his white leather couches, those cool eyes staring at the unlit fireplace that had been lit maybe 20 minutes ago. He had waited for her, and after 30 minutes, he had started to pace, and a little while later he had decided that she wasn't going to show at all. He didn't bother removing the glass of wine he had poured for her and placed on the table, but because the fireplace held quite a few unpleasant memories for the young blonde, he really didn't want to keep it burning for longer than he needed too...expecially if he was going to be alone in his apartment. Even with Cecilia, or anyone with him, it was still hard for him to walk into that room. He just kept seeing John and Grayson whenever he glanced over to the area on his floor where they had left him, half dead.
Always a fun experience.
He had his own wineglass held in his palm, the stem of the glass between his fingers as he swirled the crimson liquid, not liking that he could still smell the smoke that had come from the wood he had extinguised earlier that evening. It really only added to his foul mood. He wasn't even sure if was was mad or not. There had to be some sort of explination, because it just wasn't like Cecilia to not show. He had been worried for a long time, though. Worried that something had happened to her, and that was the reason why she wasn't there. But, he pushed that thought to the back of his mind. It was probably nothing. He was probably overreacting.
After taking another sip of his drink, he heard a series of knocks. A brow rose, and he placed the glass down on the table and rose to his feet, rolling back his bad shoulder out of habit before he approached the door, taking his time. But once he got there, he really wished he would have hurried. He didn't even have time to form emotions, or words before he felt her crash against him. His body froze, and he looked down at her, only wrapping his arms around her once that feeling of shock had left his system. He sighed lightly, his hand moving up to run his long digits through her hair. "Come inside." He spoke quietly, and calmly, pulling away from her a bit so he could bring her further into his apartment.
Closing the door behind them, he turned back to her, raising his hand once more, but this time he used it to wipe away a few of her tears, standing close to her with his other arm around her once again. "Breathe...just...breathe." He had no idea what happened, but he really needed her to stop crying. It was making him nervous, and it was making him just...he didn't even know. But she needed to stop.
It seemed like a preposterous suggestion,
breathe. She couldn't breathe because of the sobbing that had burst forth, that she couldn't control no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn't breathe because Nicholas had finally succeeded in knocking the wind right out of her and she couldn't do anything, much less calm down and breathe right now.
Evan was lucky to manage to get her inside, but the only sane cell left inside her brain told her that crying out in the hallway of her boyfriend's flat didn't exactly lend itself to her dignity. Dignity--like she had any of that right now, anyway, stumbling in here and clutching onto him, hair and makeup all screwed up, a partially empty bottle of hard liquor barely grasped with one hand and the evidence of where it had gone on her breath, just crying her eyes out like some insane person, she was---fuck, fuck, she shouldn't have come to Evan, this was the last state she wanted him to see her in.
Cecilia shook her head at his words, groaning and pushing her hair back as she forced herself to look up to the ceiling, away from the eyes that she was more frightened than anything held unbearable scrutiny. She was trying to get control, she was, but the more she forced herself, the more difficult it became, and she was a tearful wreck again in a split second.
She fell back into the chair behind her and set the bottle down on the floor in favor of covering up her face with her hands. "I
hate him," she croaked out finally, vowels just noticably slurred. Even with her speech exceptionally clear given the amount of alcohol she'd consumed, she wasn't making much sense in her words themselves. "He can't
do this, I hate him, he can't
do this to me."
He wasn't going to deny that seeing her like this wasn't something he had ever imagined, but it wasn't like he was about to judge her at this very moment. For all he knew this was just a one time thing...but something about the fact that the bottle was a bit more than half empty, and she wasn't falling onto the floor already, and was still able to talk clear enough for him to understand her, made him thing otherwise. But right now wasn't the time for a lecture, or judgement from what he could tell.
Evan stood where she left him, staring down at the bottle as she spoke, though he was really listening to everything she had to say. He wasn't avoiding eye contact like she was, but he was just thinking about what he was supposed to do in this situation. He wasn't used to people telling him things, or coming to him for advice, or coming to him because they were upset. He just wasn't used to it. People tended to leave him alone unless he asked for the company, so having his girlfriend cryi--...no,
sdobbing on his couch, obviously intoxicated, wasn't really something he dealt with all the time. Or ever. This was all new.
His brows came together as she kept mentioning a 'he'. He knew it was nothing to be worried about, because she wouldn't come to
him of all people if this was some 'he' that was a threat, and because he was half sure that he already knew who she was talking about. "You ran into Nick, didn't you?"
Cecilia nodded in affirmation, meeting his eyes momentarily in the surprise that he had been able to guess. She tried her hardest not to talk about Nick around him, not only because it was all part of her attempt to act as if she wasn't affected by the situation, but because she had never been quite sure what Evan's reaction to her talking about a blood traitor would be. Part of her was hopeful that he wouldn't care, and if she slipped up and mentioned anything about wanting him back, he would be okay with it. But the rational part of herself kept Nick out of conversation because she knew that just wasn't a practical response for him to give. Evan was a Death Eater, one of the group that represented the epitome of pureblood society and ideals, and somehow she imagined that talking about lingering feelings for her Muggle-loving brother wouldn't be any more acceptable than it would be in her own home.
Maybe it was better that way. Being with Evan would keep her emotions for Nick in check, if only for the fact that she didn't want to lose him, make him think she was just as bad as her brother. She
wasn't, she never would be. Nick was a disgrace, and she was not about to follow in his footsteps.
Cecilia attempted to swipe away the tears in her eyes as well as she could, wishing she could get rid of them. They were just evidence to caring about Nick, and she was letting him see that she was affected by the confrontation all worked against her. But she couldn't help it, she was out of control within her own body, like her brother had finally succeeded in breaking something inside of her that he'd been chipping away at for months. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to... I didn't mean to come here, I... I don't know what to do, or---I'm so embarrassed, you shouldn't see me like this, this isn't your bloody problem... Fuck, I'm going to---I'll go--"
Merlin, she was an idiot. That was the best idea she'd had all night, leaving--right, she'd leave him alone because obviously he both didn't know how to deal with this and she didn't want him to have to. Cecilia stood up from the chair--stumbling slightly as she did but managing to catch herself along the way--and fished around in her pocket for her wand so she could apparate (not the smartest idea, but she really just wanted to get out of there).
Evan stared down at her, remaining calm since that was really all he could do at the moment. She wasn't physically hurt, but emotionally? She was a wreck, from what he could tell. He didn't say much, but let her try and get everything out of her system. He didn't expect her to just open up to him and explain everything right now, but he was determined to know what had happened.
When she rose up to her feet, he automatically stepped towards her, one hand on her waist to steady her as his other hand gripped around the end of her wand, trying to slide it out of her hand as he looked her straight in the eye, working on getting the wand as he spoke. "Cecilia, listen to me. The last thing I want right now is to have half of you laying around in my apartment while the other half of you ends up in the middle of the woods somewhere, so apparating is out of the question. Sit down, because you're not going anywhere...and if you think I'm joking, I'd really love to see you try to leave. Because trying to find the rest of you after you splinch yourself
is going to be my problem." He really was trying not to be too harsh, but it was really the only way he could get it through to her that apparating was just not an option for her right now. And he wasn't going to just let her walk out the door, because her stumbling around in the middle of an alley was also something that worried him. His eyes remained connected with hers, making sure that he had made his point clear before he lowered her down onto the couch she had been sitting on moments ago. "Sit there, I'll be right back." He sighed, reached down and grabbed the bottle of tequila, and took it into his kitchen. It was here that he'd pull out a large glass, and fill it with cold water, bringing it back to Cecilia. "Here."
After he placed her drink down on the table, he took a seat beside her, leaning foreward with his elbows resting on his thighs, his fingers laced together between his legs. "What happened...?" He didn't look at her as he asked this question, but did glance over to her when he didn't hear her say anything for a while.
Cecilia groaned when Evan pried the wand from her hand and went off on not apparating, not because she was protesting, but because she was struggling to understand exactly what he was talking about and why he was saying so many things all at once. She managed to get the gist of it, though, when he made her sit back down on the couch---bloody hell, didn't he know that her staying here was a mistake? Didn't he
know that he didn't want to ask her to open up about what had occured between she and her brother because he wasn't going to like what she was bound to say? Sure, she'd try to stop herself from saying anything self-incriminating, but Cecilia hardly trusted herself right now, in this state, and she knew that this was simply a very, very bad idea altogether.
She took the glass of water reluctantly, only taking a drink because her throat was burning from the crying anyway, and felt him sit down next to her despite refusing to look at him. She swallowed at his question, weighing in her mind what her chances of success were if she tried to jump up and run away--not good, not with her drunk and him sober, not to mention twice her size. So her options consisted, basically, of either telling Evan what had happened, lying to him, or trying to stay silent and giving him the cold shoulder.
The most natural option won out first, and Cecilia felt the words of explanation bubbling up almost before she could stop them--she did, though, at the very last moment. Merlin, she wanted to, she wanted more than anything to tell Evan the truth, or rather be
able to tell him the truth, but she couldn't. What could she lie about, though? Her mind was foggy, keeping her drawing complete blanks on a feasible lie. Stay silent, then? Also not an option, not with the rate she was going at tonight--that was going to fail, she could see it now.
Clutching the glass tighter in her hands, she had a short moment of dread fill her before she finally opened her mouth. A short moment of thinking that this was the end of this relationship as she knew it, a short moment of gauging just how many seconds it would take for Evan to get up and leave--or maybe yell at her, but he really didn't strike her as much of a yelling person. Cecilia sounded dramatic, she knew, but could you blame her? He wasn't going to appreciate this question, and if he stuck around to hear out the rest of it, he was going to just get more and more disappointed by the second. And yet, she asked it anyway, knowing that there was no way around it--quietly, timidly, in what could almost be considered a croak.
"...what if you were a Muggle?"
He was prepared for anything, really....well, anything except for the question that she was asking him. He felt himself get a little bit tense as his eyes focused in on her own, wondering if this was all some sort of sick and twisted joke. But then again this was
Nick they were talking about, so maybe there was a good reason she was asking. It was amazing, how much Evan wanted to hurt this guy, and he hadn't even met him yet. The fact that he got Cecilia to cry this much was enough to make Nick Hooke suffer for a very long time. In short? Evan wasn't a fan of her brother.
"...what?" His eyes narrowed curiously before he tilted his head to the side a bit. "Did
he say that?" Before he waited for an answer, he scoffed and raised a hand to push back his blonde locks that had fallen into his eyes. It sounded like Nick had tried to turn his own situation against Cecilia, because never in a million years would Cecilia ask such an odd and in Evan's mind an insulting question. "What do you want me to say, Cecilia? Tell you that things would be different? Because you know as well as I do that they would." He really wasn't sure if this was what she wanted to hear, but it was something she did need to hear. "Don't compare us to them. He
left, Cecilia. He left
you. He chose his fucking muggle over his
family." His hand moved to fix her hair with his fingers before he dropped his hand back down. "He should have ended it as soon as he found out. He should have just walked away and not have bothered trying to build up a relationship he knew wouldn't be accepted. He blames you for being upset, for not understanding...but he had a choice. If he cared about you at all, he'd see that."
Cecilia just sat there and nodded silently, thankful that he
hadn't called her out on the question or left or something--he seemed a little agitated by it, but that was better than blindly angry. Still, she had no idea if his response was what she had been wanting to hear or not.
Sure, it was great that he had faith in her, that she would uphold her own values and give him up, but--but was that completely true? She couldn't imagine a world where she was forbidden to be with Evan, would she be able to handle it and not run back to him, against all will of her parents and the society she lived in? She wanted to say yes, she was that strong, but she wanted to say
no, that being with him meant something past that he was
approved. If they meant nothing more to each other than that, then was what they were doing even real? Was---bloody hell, she had to stop thinking things like this or she was really going to start regretting them.
No, Evan was right, this was just Nick trying to turn things against her. He wanted her to think like this, it was--he was bloody out to get her, that had to be it, because of how she'd treated him and his Muggle. He was trying to ruin
her life, he saw that she was happy and---the bastard had left
her, just like Evan said, and he was bitter about having chosen the wrong path while
she'd done something right with her life. He didn't care about her at all. Nick didn't care, and she shouldn't have been bothered by what he said for a second.
"Right... you're--you're right," she sighed, her tears finally stopping. "I'm sorry, I--he gets to me, Evan. He just gets to me."
"Of course he's going to get ot you, he's your brother...but he's not worth it." He was glad that she had stopped crying, but that didn't change the fact that she was still drunk, and looked like a wreck. He pushed some of her hair back and kissed her forehead before he pulled back to look at her. He really wasn't going to bring up the whole tequila bit, even though he should, but that really didn't mean that it was going to get mentioned at one point. She was drunk, though, and he really didn't think that sending her back to her parents with her eyes red from crying and alcohol on her breath was the best idea in the world. "You're going to be fine...but I don't think you should go home like this."
Cecilia nodded quietly, not about to argue that fact with him. She could always try and sneak around her parents or something, but it was going to be a lot easier to get in trouble in the morning and make up a lie about where she'd been than do that and risk being skinned alive. There was no way that Mortimer and Eliza Hooke would stand for their youngest daughter to show up like this--they'd been even stricter with her since Nick had---fuck him,
Nick, he really did try to ruin everything in her life. He wasn't worth it, he wasn't worth it. "He's not my brother," she muttered belatedly. "And no... I don't want to go home. I shouldn't go home. I can't go home."
He gave her a single nod that meant he understood, and looked down at the couch, running his hand though his hair again. He really didn't know what to say. There was nothing more he
could say, that he hadn't already...well, said. "Then let's get you cleaned up...you'll stay here tonight." Rising to his feet, he held out his hand so she could take it before he guided her into the master bedroom. He had her take a seat on the toilet while he gathered her some towels and a washcloth so that she could take a shower. He was sure that she could stand up straight long enough to run some cold water over her face if she was sober enough to find her way to his apartment.
Laying everything out on the counter, he asked her to wait for a moment so he could go back into his room. He took the time when she wasn't around to lean on one of his dressers, his eyes closed as he cracked his neck by tilting it one way and then another. This was really the last thing he had expected. After a few seconds, he opened a drawer and pulled out one of his t-shirts and a pair of drawstring pants that he usually wore to sleep, and brought them into the bathroom for her. "Here. I'd give you something of Kal's but she took everything back home." Placing them on the counter, he moved infront of her and squatted down. "Listen to me. You'll be fine. You're just worked up right now. Take a cold shower, calm yourself down, and you'll be alright. And don't apologise for coming here again. I'm glad you did. I probably would have been more pissed off if I found out that you passed out in a ditch somewhere because you thought you had nowhere else to go."
Obviously she wasn't about to argue, not when Evan was letting her stay there, not after he had been so understanding about the situation with her brother. It was really amazing how he'd defied everything she'd thought would come from this conversation and just
been there and--ugh, okay, so she was never going to doubt him again. She wasn't convinced that he was different from other purebloods--she still figured he'd be pretty pissed off if she decided to run off and be a Muggle lover or whatever--but he was definitely different from some of them. He'd listened to her and not yelled, which was more than she could expect from her parents and friends.
Cecilia glanced over at the things Evan had set down in the bathroom and took a breath before she stood up slowly, running her hands over her legs and she did so. She stood over him for a good few seconds, just staring down, and then slowly knelt down with him to envelop him in a tight hug.
"You're amazing," she told him quietly. "If I can't apologize for coming here, then at least let me apologize because I keep forgetting that somehow."
He once again found himself frozen in place as she drew him into another tight hug. It wasn't even what she was doing, it was what she was saying. He had watched her lower herself down, and he had been expecting it, and his arms had gone around her as well, but...no, he wasn't
amazing. It wasn't even him just being modest, because he was hardly that at all. Evan Rosier was
far from modest, but still. He had done terrible things in the past, even though he didn't really think of them as terrible as all. The actions were cruel, but in his mind he was doing nothing wrong. He just knew if
she ever found out about it she wouldn't think it was all that amazing. He pulled back from her and brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. He debated about saying something against her newest apology, but decided against it in the end. He didn't say anything, actually. He just looked her in the eye before he swallowed and moved on to the next subject. "Do you need anything else?"
She shook her head and smiled, the first semblance of real happiness she'd felt come out of her in hours, even though it had been bittersweet. Cecilia shook her head and brought her hand up to lay over his before leaning forward and kissing him, nothing special, just softly and cleanly, but full of appreciation. "No," she assured him as she pulled back. "I'll be fine after I shower and sleep. And you've given me more tonight than I could ever ask for." She leaned in and gave him one more grateful kiss, and then stood up and arched a brow down at him. "And now, as much as I'd like to keep you here, I think there's supposed to be a purpose to this shower other than having fun..."
He returned the kiss, as he usually did, tasting the faint remnants of tequila on her lips as he did so. His fingers curled around her hand as she laid it over his, twisting it so he could hold onto it for a few seconds before she rose up to her feet. A smirk graced his features as he looked over to the shower she was speaking about. "Supposedly." He looked back to her before he stood up, giving her one final kiss before he pulled away. "I'll leave you to do what you have to do. I'll probably be in my room when you're done, but if not then just...look for me." He shrugged his shoulders a little before he turned and made his way back into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. It was strange, how whenever he wanted to just unwind and relax, something big came up. He had been expecting Cecilia that night, but not when she showed up, or for the same reason. So, he was just trying to get back on track. She seemed to be calm enough, but now
he was tense and uncomfortable. Just because she had stopped crying didn't mean that she
hadn't been. He really just wanted to hurt Nick. That was all that was on his mind as he gathered his own clothes and made his way into the other bathroom to take a shower of his own. He didn't want to show her how pissed off he was, because even though she denied that he was still her brother, she wouldn't want to see a known Death Eater be angry about a man who married a muggle.
It just...it didn't ever end well.
