WHO: Nona Pepper, Saoirse Mullet, and a guest
WHAT: Explosions, sexual harassment, and spotted dick
WHERE: 221B Baker St Mullet & Pepper Residence
WHEN: WHY, IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY!
Saoirse’s eyes snapped open, and thoughtlessly her hand reached to grip Howell’s arm under her head as she slowly sat up. She had thought... a second, much louder than the first, more violent crash (or was it an explosion?) shook the walls, and this time her response was not as lax. Saoirse shot to snatch her wand from the bedside table, and thinking nothing but instinctually, jumped out of bed toward the door.
How else were you to act after being so unceremoniously awoken in the middle of the night? Something could be wrong, very wrong, by the noises continuing to come from what seemed like downstairs. The thought that this may be one of Nona’s experiments finally dying, or sparking alive, did not occur to her; how could it at this hour? Ultimately, having gone through a kidnapping situation left little room for not assuming the worst in a potentially ominous situation. Saoirse’s thoughts felt jumbled and too quick to think without jumping to conclusions. What if something had happened to Nona? What if something was currently happening to Nona? In all honesty, it sounded like Father Christmas had taken quite a beating and fell through the roof.
Urgency filled her as her concern for her friend grew, and without hesitation, Saoirse ripped the door open and jetted down the stairs. Vaguely, she heard Howell behind her, but all thoughts concerning him quickly vanished as another loud boom shook the entire house. What in the world---
“What’s happened!” Saoirse rushed, sliding into the living room, wand at the ready. But, her hand quickly dropped, and the other rose to wave away the cloud gathering front of her face. She coughed, and stuck her wand out to dissipate the smoke away from the center of the room. “Is the tree on fire again?”
"BLAST!"
With her hair piled haphazardly high atop her head in a thick, encompassing bun, and her face decorated in streaks of soot, Nona was no Father Christmas, but there was a gaping hole in the roof above her, and she did just look as if she'd come down the chimney in a snowstorm. She flapped at the smoke swirling around her and her cauldron with the latest issue of The Practical Potioneer. It was one of about seven strewn about the room, many of which bubbled atop simmering fires of red and green, though the coinciding with the holiday was in fact entirely coincidental. One spouted purple smoke rings from its eerily still surface, and another let out periodic emissions that sounded a bit like hiccups, and one, yes, had a tendency to catch their wonderfully decorated (or at least, it had at one point been) tree on fire. She had no idea what any of them would actually do, but she had grand ideas of what they were supposed to do.
It was probably a good thing they had little use for the space (or did they? They didn't have much of a choice now, as it were), as the cauldron that had just ignited in her face was being fed by a series of glass tubes that wound about a third of the way through the room, different intervals piping in ingredients for her latest alchemical dabbling. The problem was that she'd have the instructions before her, and as she possessed superior reading and comprehension skills, thank you, saw exactly where the potion was supposed to progress. But as she followed the instructions, she also envisioned where the potion could go, and then began to detour. At times, it was wildly successful, and... at times, it was merely wild, and also sometimes wildly dangerous.
You won some, you lost some.
This was definitely a loss, Nona thought as she heard the pounding of footsteps after the initial explosion. She studied the gaping hole in the ceiling plaster above her with a wrinkled nose, not bothering to brush the snow off her shoulders. Nona had blown out a window and part of the wall last week with almost no one the wiser, but this might prove more difficult to go unnoticed.
"It's nothing," she said serenely from her perch atop the table, even as bits of ceiling and snowflakes fell from her bun. As her friend skid in, another (small) explosion lit a bubbling fountain of electric green into the air. "We'll have to re-plaster the ceiling, but it's nothing as bad as last week, when I—" she broke off as a giant stumbled in after Saoirse, rubbing at his eyes, and clad in naught but a small pair of black pants.
Eyes widening and alighting in interest, Nona tilted her head as her lips formed a small "o." "Well," she purred, pleased the smoky haze was rapidly dispersing from the room so her eyes were free to glide from his head to his feet in a thorough study, "what have we here?"
If her mouth hadn’t already been open from peering through the giant hole in the ceiling, it would have dropped at Nona’s words. Within the midst of playoffs, the holiday season, and her own general tendency to withhold information, Saoirse may not have notified Nona... or perhaps she had merely forgotten to mention... the fact that she had knowingly snuck Howell into the house earlier, conveniently while Nona had been incredibly focused on fitting Pig, their newly acquired flying pig, in his Christmas attire, was an issue to be addressed later whilst categorizing all the moments she could have informed her close friend and housemate about her current romantic situation but decided not to. It had simply... whenever Saoirse thought of bringing the subject up, a wildly unmanageable feeling filled her and then she simply couldn’t think of it a minute further.
What an uncomfortable turn of events not doing that had led to.
She stared blankly. Then, her eyes moved to the various cauldrons, like they would provide some mystical answer as to how to tackle this situation. Could the tree, perhaps, provide a magical holiday answer to her current distress? Something of a blush formed on her cheeks, and pulling her lips back, Saoirse brought her hand up to the side of her forehead. Her face contorted to create an almost confused look, though she was merely strained to produce an appropriate response.
“This is.... Howell. Williams,” Saoirse let out after what seemed like an unbearable long couple of silent moments. An increasingly uncomfortable feeling began to take over her, as she felt awkward in every possible way. Should she turn back to him? Should she continue this staring contest with Nona? Should she lightly laugh? They all seemed perfectly incapable of her. In honesty, she deeply desired to slink back and hide away behind Howell’s form, but that would be an unfair act against him. Instead, she mustered leaning back to where she believed was his general direction.
“From---” she had been about to say ‘from the summer’, but Saoirse quickly remembered that she hadn’t exactly informed Nona about Howell then either, which really made this entire situation much more uncomfortable. What had she been thinking? Running down to check up on the consciousness of Nona? She was always fine. And it was practically Christmas, nothing horrible ever happened on Christmas. Except exchanges like this, apparently.
“.... Cornwall.” It was surprising how light and factual her tone came out; it hid the rising feeling of overwhelmedness taking over her. “Nona Pepper,” Saoirse rushed, unable to turn, let alone look back at Howell just yet. Instead she turned her empty hand palm up toward the witch surrounded by cauldrons, pieces of ceiling, and still a bit of hazy smoke. An image which certainly did not look absolutely unfortunate at best.
Howell was trying not to be offended that Saoirse had literally snuck him into her house. It was Christmas Eve, after all, which meant she was at least partially all right with spending a major holiday with him. Also trying his best not to do anything that could be construed as "pushing," he patiently refrained from commenting on the matter. And could continue to be patient, but honestly hadn't thought her roommate would be awful about him staying there. He'd arrived late enough that he wouldn't have disrupted any of their celebrations, so surely the girl couldn't have been angry? Perhaps she was an awful gossip, which was why Saoirse didn't want to tell her about the two of them, but Howell couldn't see Saoirse living with someone like that. Perhaps she was a prude? But goodness knew they weren't doing anything (terribly) illicit, which he was also being very patient about.
Well, that wasn't so much a matter of patience as a matter of nerves, as he was doubting his ability to control himself doing… any part of that, with… all of Saoirse. Howell was happy to let her set the pace, and it still usually ended up divesting him of any clothing covering his torso, and, on the occasions he wore them, trousers. Though his socks usually managed to stay where they were.
Which was a matter he was going to have to rectify as he stood one step away from being buck-arsed nude, heart still pounding, and freezing in Saoirse's apothecary/living room, half-expecting to see the corpse of Father Christmas facedown on the floor. Instead, there was a mad sprite sitting cross-legged on the table, her face illuminated an eerie green from the toxic-looking (and smelling) substance in the bubbling cauldron. Feeling intensely like he was on display from her cat-eyed stare, though in a strangely asexual manner, he stealthily reached his hands around Saoirse's waist to very ungentlemanly tug her in front of him and his pride and glory.
His hands froze in the midst of pulling her towards him, as he got a load of her introduction of him. Howell Williams from Cornwall? He gaped down at her, of a mind to say someething (what, he didn't know) about the medieval presentation, when he was abruptly cut off.
"Howell Williams?" he heard the girl, Nona, echo. She cocked her head even further, and left Howell with the distinct impression of an acrobatic giraffe. "He looks very fertile."
She sounded approving.
Holy shit, had the ground swallowed him whole yet?
It was ironic that she had rushed downstairs out of concern for Nona’s life, for absolutely now Saoirse would be the one to end it come morning. He looked fertile? Oh, well, this was simply the most idea exchange between them she could have ever wished for! Howell, stripped down to his pants, no doubt wildly wishing to be anywhere else in the world than where he currently was (a feeling only made worse by the fact that she still hadn’t been able to turn back and look at him), as Nona, looking nothing less than a wannabe-boggart, happily establishing his healthy ability to produce offspring. And to top it all off it was Christmas Eve! It almost made her feel justified for thinking it a better idea to discreetly slip Howell inside earlier than parading him in front of Nona just yet. Almost. But her deep desire to be alleviated of this current situation overrode any thoughts of rightness.
Caught between her face burning brightly and eyes blinking blankly like nothing of it, Saoirse shifted uncomfortably in Howell’s tight grasp. Her hands went vaguely back behind her toward him, then hovered over her waist until awkwardly falling down to her sides. Her wand hitched at her side, slightly, and dug into her leg uncomfortably. But the forced weight helped her focus, for above all else now, Howell’s general closeness made her lose focus.
How could she... what was there even to say? It was quite obvious that everything had blown up in her face (like a cauldron-- at least the poetic irony could be appreciated), and when something like that happened, what were you to do? Slughorn, during one of his many potion and life lessons, had told her that mistakes would always be undoubtedly made, but it was how you went about addressing them for the future that truly counted. But was it even possible to relieve this level of embarrassment? Perhaps it would be best to address one level at a time. Deciding upon this, and still too mortified to look at Howell, Saoirse sought to end this interaction first.
“It might be a bit too late to be talking about things like that,” Saoirse spoke quickly, willing her words to leave her mouth faster if they could. She supposed a large part of her understood what Nona meant, but now was not the time to translate or think about it. A long breath, which was meant to be a short laugh, left her. “So I think we will just leave you to it, and... see you in the morning.”
As she spoke, she leaned backward and brought up one of her hands to push Howell back as well toward the doorway.
Nona's tongue was tucked firmly in her cheek as she watched two pairs of cheeks simultaneously turn what one might term "beet red," even in the dim of the room. Her comment had been entirely factual, but her actual purpose in saying so was the knowledge that it would make her friend squirm, which Nona considered an amusing comeuppance for holding out on her. She'd been wondering when Saoirse would have come around to spilling the beans about the mystery boy she'd been skulking about with, and found it difficult to be annoyed with the disastrous end of her alchemical tinkering, given its outcome. And the slowly drifting snowflakes from outside certainly added atmosphere (and chill) to the room.
Not that she could blame Saoirse for wanting to keep this boy a secret, Nona thought as she watched Howell Williams from Cornwall awkwardly shuffle backwards, out of the room. She did not miss the split-second opportunity to admire his posterior when he was forced to turn as he sidled away. Fertile was really an understatement. His proportions were immensely pleasing to the eye, and her appreciation for the size of his biceps was not wholly academic.
"Make sure you're both down bright and early for breakfast!" she called innocently, congratulating herself immensely on eradicating all instances of glee from her tone. "There's spotted dick for everyone!"
Her shoulders fell, and Saoirse’s face screwed up tight as she doubled back to glare at Nona. Not glare, glower, in the most offended of ways, because now it was impossible to assume she’d been innocently unaware this whole time. And while Saoirse would later admit she most likely did deserve a bit of torture for keeping Nona in the dark, it certainly didn’t feel that way at that moment. At the moment, she was contemplating some very nasty thoughts that would no doubt get her permanently stuck on Father Christmas’ naughty list if seen through.
Lips pressed together, she shook her hair out and quickly left the room with one lasting intense stare for her housemate. It wasn’t until she turned forward again that Saoirse then remembered that that had only been half the battle. She still had to.... it wasn’t that she was assuming Howell would be upset, it was simply... she knew she would need to be talked down if that had been her with one of his friends. Rubbing her palm on the side of her head again, Saoirse quickened her gate to catch up to Howell.
Or perhaps he would be very upset, for it was screamingly obvious that she had not mentioned a word of him to her own housemate. Which only begged the question that if she hadn’t told the person she lived with, then who? The answer, of course, was not anyone, which was not... it wasn’t like that.... it was just... Saoirse shook her head. She reached forward, and managed to catch and run her fingers through his from behind before Howell managed to slip back into the darkness of her bedroom. Establishing a united front come Christmas morning would be completely necessary against the force that would be Nona Pepper.
