Who: Hippocrates Smethwyck and Rachel Englewood
What: Heavy handed juice pouch metaphors
? IDK CRACK!Where: St. Mungo's
When: Today, lunchtime
To his immense surprise, Smeth found that he was able to sleep quite peacefully last night, despite of the substantial amount of surprising journal drama he had somehow found himself in. The fight he had with Jen over the journals was extremely draining, to say the least... yet it felt cathartic. He had never really let out and explained himself to her when she came back, the way he had done with his quill last night. He had been too busy trying to rebuild what their relationship had been. But he had came to realize that he had been through too much to truly put himself back in a relationship with his former girlfriend. Maybe it was he who had changed, but his heart just... wasn't into it. Nor it was ready. Despite the fact that they had talked and agreed that being friends would be for the best, imagine the bit of shock that he felt when Jen accused him and made him out to some kind of a... well, he wasn't quite sure of the term, but.
Sigh.
The truly bright spot of last night was the wonderful conversation with Rachel Englewood, otherwise known as his new Healer Assistant. It was somewhat surprising how fast their friendship was developing, but he welcomed it. Last year, he had buried himself in his work and tried to tune out everyone and everything, due to the intense pain of Jen leaving him with just a note. However, he had finally gotten over it, and that part of his life was over. He wasn't ready to go into a committed relationship, that was for sure, but he was ready to be open to people and new beginnings. Last night he had been thrown into a loop due to said heated argument with his ex-girlfriend, and luckily, his new friend was able to comfort and assuage his fears, guilt, and doubts.
Well, nearly all of his fears, guilt, and doubts, anyway.
Easily crossing the barrier from the Muggle department store, Purge and Dowse, Ltd., into St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, he spotted Rachel in her new purple robes, looking professional and very cheerful. Almost
too cheerful. Something from last night clicked in his mind, and the cheery greeting he was about to call out came out instead in a groan.
"Miss Englewood, don't tell me that you're still determined to make me blush."
Rachel had been very careful this past year and a half.
She was selfish and self-absorbed, this was very true. But she did understand where lines needed be drawn and toed, and she was determined to show people that she was not some screw-up who went crazy just because she had the money and resources to allow for such behavior.
But she was tired of being careful.
And for some reason, she didn't feel much like being careful around Hippocrates Smethwyck at all.
At all.
She couldn't really say it was, at all, in any way, like feelings she'd had before in regards to misbehavior. Really, all Rachel felt like doing was grinning like an idiot and making
him grin too, but that was neither here or there.
The point was, she
liked how she felt around him, like it was all the fun and exhilaration of being wild and out of control, but the most risque thing she did was suffer from heart palpitations when he tried to listen to her heart.
And as she saw him walking up to her, all she could think was how charming of a man he really was, and how much fun it would be to persistently carry out her threat from last night.
"I don't know
what you're talking about, Healer Smethwyck." And that was another thing! She felt it was doing him a disservice to refer to him as anything but Healer Smetwyck, no matter how mischievous her tone was. She was still adjusting to "Smeth" outside of work (she did wonder if anyone called him "Hippo"), but anything else just seemed like a travesty. "But, I did bring my camera today!" she exclaimed, swinging the object dangling from her wrist. "You know. Just to document the working process to help me learn and assimilate into my new working environment."
She flashed him a cheeky grin.
Smeth felt his mouth drop open and his eyebrows shot up in pure surprise. What.
What! Frantically he searched his extensive memory if there was a rule against cameras in St. Mungo's. Maybe it would against policy to carry one, and then he'd have to tell her that, oooh, so sorry, you cannot possibly carry out your VERY EVIL plan to embarrass me plus capture that moment for all of posterity to see. Tragically, he came up blank. Technically, she was not doing any wrong. Well! Hmmph.
However, he could not suppress the huge grin that broke out across his face, even as he huffed dramatically.
"That is not very nice, Healer Assistant Englewood," he said sternly, lips twitching as he tried not to smirk. He brushed her hand as he reached out to pick up the camera. Fully loaded. Hmmph. "Silly pictures were not part of the job description."
And their day began much like the last day had, where he'd explain the way he did this or that and what the standard protocol for this was and oh--write that down! Rachel had snapped pictures of him while talking, under pretense of saying it would help her remember what he was saying.
He gave her many stern looks and she innocently batted her eyes at him every time.
When the time came for lunch, they loosened their robes and sat at the table that quickly seemed to be becoming "theirs" and that's when Smeth took it out.
A shiny silver pouch was looking back at her as he squinted his eyes and prodded something long and thin at it with little success.
"Wh--what is that thing?" she asked, fascinated by the shinyness of it, amused by his attempts to puncture the shiny silver, and a little appalled by what it could possibly be. Anything that could make him make
that face, well, that was just...
She didn't have any words for what that was, actually.
A halfblood, Smeth had been brought up with plenty of Muggle customs, and having a couple of Capri Suns with every lunch was one of them. Maybe it started when his mum had bought a bulk pack of the pouch juices when he was a little kid, but all he knew was it was normal to have one with his lunch or with a snack. However, this Capri Sun proved to be most challenging, and the little pointy straw that came with it was not cooperating at all. As he was valiantly trying to poke the top with the straw, he caught Rachel's expression out of the corner of his eye.
"Yes, Healer Assistant?" His previously intense expression - which was unbeknownst to him and very comical to anyone witnessing - relaxed into a smile when he noticed at what she was staring at. "Oh! This is a Capri Sun, it's like a juice pouch, it's a Muggle brand. See, you poke the straw into the hole like so... Well, my demonstration would be much better when it finally works... Hmm. Here!" He rummaged through his lunch bag for his second silver juice pouch and placed it in Rachel's hand. "Try it! It's fruit punch."
She was so intrigued by what caused the intense expression of Smeth's face that she accepted the juice pouch with very wide eyes as their hands brushed.
Rachel knew she liked shiny things, but this was absurd. The entire thing seemed to be made out of silver paper and it was like a terrible, terrible mirror. She
liked it. This was entirely absurd, this was a
Muggle product! How interesting could it be? Food was food, drink was drink, and all that.
She slid the straw (she figured what it must have been by "juice pouch," shockingly enough) out of it's wrapper and pressed it into the silver dot on the pouch.
Nothing happened.
She pushed harder.
The straw slipped.
Biting her lip, she tried to lay the pouch flat and prod the straw in. "Smeth," she said unhappily, trying various methods of forcing that stupid straw in. "Smeth, it's not working."
Smeth's brow furrowed again as he tried to unsuccessfully bite back a laugh. Oh, he shouldn't laugh,
he of course, couldn't get the little pointy straw into the hole either! "Hmmm, let's see," he said, scooting his chair closer to Rachel. "It's like..." He took her hand holding the straw, his other hand on her other hand holding the pouch, and pushed into the hole. With a bit of resistance, the straw finally slipped in. "See! You did it!"
He leaned back in his chair and reached for his own pouch, determined to get the straw in. When a man was a thirsty, a man had to have his drink. He pushed hard, and the straw finally yielded into the shiny silver fruit punch-flavored pouch. He made an exaggerated sad face at Rachel. "There, finally," he said faux-petulantly, sucking on the straw, meanwhile trying to ignore the strange, sudden fluttering of his heart.
Those darn Capri Suns.
Obviously, it was the adrenaline pulsing through her from her valiant struggle with the capri sun that made her heart pulse turn into a hummingbird wingbeat all of a sudden.
...
That excuse didn't even sound good in her
head. But she was extremely distracted when--
"I did!" she squealed, surprised when the straw suddenly punctured through the silver lining. Well, that was a huge falsehood, technically
Smeth had done it, but... well, she
was still Rachel, after all.
And it was right then, as he went back to his own juice pouch that Rachel grabbed her camera and went "POUT!" and she clicked a picture of Smeth giving her his best childish sulk and clutching his juicebox.
She tucked the camera away before he had a chance to clear his eyes from the flash.
"I like these," Rachel said decidedly, staring at her juice pouch very intently.
Smeth, now used to Rachel whipping out the camera, gave her his best tragic pouty face. Well, he figured that she at least gave him sort of warning before snapping yet another picture. "There are good, aren't they? I've had them since I was little, and now I need them with my lunch or snack." He grinned sheepishly and cocked his head with a grin. "But I'm glad that you liked them. And you even got to open it all by yourself!" Well,
technically he had done so, but who cared about technicalities?
He found that he suddenly did not care for them at all.
She looked at him and lowered her eyes to the camera strap she was fiddling with, one hand moving towards the pouch as she took a sip of the sugary drink to wet her throat which suddenly went dry.
"N--no. You did help me open it."
Rachel picked up the camera with a tiny, hesitant smile and said, "Cheers!" as she snapped another picture.
