WHO: Charlie Spinnet & Penelope Fawcett
WHAT: Strange cuteness??
WHERE: Charlie's
WHEN: Few days before Christmas

For the first time in a few weeks, Penelope had managed more than her average of five hours of sleep, which had given her nearly unheard of levels of energy and a rare, light mood. She had spent the night at her boyfriend's for the first time this month, passed entirely too much time playing with Pascal this morning, and was enjoying the idea of a rare Saturday without work. The bulk of her energy expended, she sat on the sofa with one leg tucked underneath her, hair piled haphazardly in a knot atop her head, and her tongue poking out slightly as she sketched an ear of the dozy dog on the floor before her with the utmost concentration.

"A little to the left?" she suggested to Pascal, who opened one eye and blinked in a decidedly unimpressed manner at her before shutting it again. Nudging him slightly with her other foot, she said wheedlingly, "Please?"

Assuming this was language for "I am going to rub your belly," Pascal flopped over onto his back and licked the bottom of her foot, which had her recoiling as she let out a squeal. The passing two seconds in which no one bestowed affection on him was enough to lull him back to his nap, though he helpfully remained in his splayed out position, should the urge to pet strike a passer-by.

"He gets entirely too lethargic when you leave," she told Charlie as he emerged from the bedroom. Tracing her charcoal stick absently along the band of her bangle, she gave Pascal an exasperated and reluctant smile."You will likely have to take him with you next time."

With his sunburn mostly gone and faded away save for a nearly unreachable spot between his shoulder blades, Charlie was in a much better mood than he had been a few weeks ago. The beaches of the Caribbean had definitely helped him clear his mind of all the agony of not making the playoffs, he’d managed to accept his mistakes in the conversation he’d had with Axe, and he was willing to deal with his captain not accepting his apology. He’d done the right thing and fessed up for being an idiot, so. There was not much more he could do on that end.

It had been fun to spend time with Delilah without the stress of work or friends or significant others. As often as he and his twin bickered, they really did know each other best and got along swimmingly when they were in good moods. Delilah was really the only person he could be completely himself with; she’d seen every side of him since the moment she’d entered this world, it only made sense that they could read each other’s minds at all times, whether it be at a bar or surfing the waves. He was definitely grateful for her suggestion to skip the country.

With a great yawn, Charlie stretched his arms high. Pascal didn’t shift in his position on the floor, but furiously began to wag his tail to grab Charlie’s attention.

“I could teach him how to surf,” Charlie said, dropping down to his knees. He fell for Pascal’s charm and began to rub his belly, soon finding himself lying on the floor alongside the dog. He lifted his head up to Penny with a still-sleepy grin. His hand lazily moved back and forth on the dog’s stomach, “It’s not too hard. Even Delilah figured it out.”

Stretching out along the sofa, she propped her chin up with one hand and crossed her feet in the air. As if the two sleepy males on the floor weren't enough to tickle her, the image of their admittedly lazy dog balanced on all fours, surf-drenched fur flying in the wind, and pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth had her stifling giggles. "Well, now you'll definitely have to take him."

Mostly of its own accord, her hand was beginning to sketch Charlie into the picture, though Pascal had rotated about one-hundred-and-eighty degrees from where she'd originally drawn him. Undaunted, she focused on capturing the strong line of Charlie's shoulders, the frankly appealing bedhead, and the smile that spoke of a late morning. Penelope liked to keep especially busy in the later months of the year, this being the first one she was actually productive during, so she marvelled slightly at how easy it felt to slow down, even if just for half the day.

"It's nice you had a true chance to relax before the Cup." She knew the season had been a rough one for him, and that failing to make the play-offs was a burden entirely its own. And though they had done a champion job of avoiding discussing it, the small but weighty fact that he was going to be playing alongside her championship-winning brother for a month remained. Getting off the island had to have helped with the stress of all that.

Her hand dropped to scratch Pascal's silky ear, but found itself waylaid when she reached Charlie's sleep-mussed head first. Simulating the action on him instead, she smiled slightly down at him. "Even if you did come back looking a bit like a lobster."

“So burnt,” he agreed, shutting his eyes to enjoy the feeling of Penny’s fingers. He’d certainly enjoyed himself, but Charlie was glad to be back home and with in his very own flat, sharing his very own bed with his very own girlfriend. He enjoyed the regularity they now shared, even though their schedules had been mad for the past few months. Charlie was proud of Penelope’s new job and though he missed the random and spontaneous intervals in which they used to see each other, he was glad that her life was finally on a track she wanted and deserved. Her hard work made him think about this past season differently; Charlie’s goal saves were second highest in the league, he’d been voted onto the All Star team, and was now going to represent his country in the European Cup. Of course he’d wished for his team to advance into the playoffs, but quidditch was a fickle sport. One day you were on top of the world and the next you were scraping the bottom of the barrel.

There was always next year.

He twisted, lifting his chin to kiss the tips of Penny’s fingers. It was then that he noticed the bracelet around her wrist, one that he hadn’t seen before.

“Is that from your brother?” he asked, reaching up to touch one of the charms. It looked rather expensive, no matter the simple design. Charlie himself was no good at picking out jewelry and often had to enlist his sister to help with his purchase. Those shopping sprees often ended up with Delilah coming home with her own pieces of jewelry, but the end result of a perfect present made up for the extra money spent.

She felt strangely sated, as if a warmth was radiating out from within her, a feeling she only remembered experiencing at the party she had gotten disastrously intoxicated at. But she had abused no such substances this morning, so the pleasantly blushing feeling was all her own doing. She managed a few strokes of the charcoal with her other hand, noting from her high vantage point that he had unfairly long lashes for a man. "Drystan?" Penelope twisted her wrist experimentally, some of the light reflecting dully off the stones on one of the little bows. "Oh, no."

She couldn't help sounding amused, because while Drystan had an uncannily good eye for frippery and whatnot, he rarely, if ever, fussed as such with his sisters. He tended to gift them practical, useful objects that would serve purpose in their everyday lives, and if they were really lucky, it would double as some sort of survival paraphernalia. Penelope's expression sobered some as she thought about the last three years, and how Drystan's efforts had redoubled a bit fanatically with her, even when they'd gone months upon months without speaking. In fact, the lucky charm he'd sent her right before she re-sat her N.E.W.T.s was the only fussy thing she could recall receiving from him in the last five years or so, and she knew that he saw it much more as a symbol of protection and luck than a piece of jewelry.

"Tripp gave it to me. We exchanged gifts a few days ago. He said he'd be out of touch on Christmas."

Charlie’s look of disgust at the sound of her study partner’s name couldn’t be helped. His hand dropped from the charms immediately and went back to focus on Pascal, whose tail was now wagging furiously because he had been ignored. “That’s a rather fancy gift for a study partner.”

Again, couldn’t be helped. Charlie had only met this ‘Tripp’ character (what kind of name was that? It was a verb or a noun, not a name) briefly and he couldn’t say that he liked him very much. Despite the fact that the bloke gave him the strangest of feelings, Penny spending time alone with someone who could be considered handsome by society’s terms did not settle well in Charlie’s stomach. Maybe it was jealousy; even famous quidditch players had their doubts about things, right?

Or maybe only the supremely self-conscious ones like Charlie did, and whenever Tripp was mentioned caused him to feel slightly ill with worry that Penny was going to realize how much of an idiot he was and spend the rest of her life with this brilliant study partner of hers.

Once more putting himself into a silent frenzy over this frustrating thorn in his side, Charlie sat up and crossed his legs. He stared hard at the bracelet, wondering how much she liked it.

“And what did you get him?”

Once her shoulder began to tingle from the lack of blood flow, Penelope set down her charcoal and pushed the sketchbook away, repositioning the rest of herself on the sofa.

"Cufflinks. I started them when Pyrrhus was teaching me detail work." It was impossible not to light up when thinking of the mountainous red-haired man who had been kind enough to take her under wing last fall. As much as she loved Aesalon, the staff, and what they did, she'd been unable to tear herself away entirely from metal-charming, as much for the people as the work. In fact, that was where a great many of her gifts this year had gotten their start, if not their finish, and she was proud of being able to handcraft as many of them as she had.

That was probably for the best, as Penelope discovered that if it were within her means, she would have presents for positively everyone of her acquaintance, even affable-enough looking strangers, and worry about how each and every one would be received. Though her "everybody" was quite a bit smaller these days, it was still a daunting list to a less hearty soul.

Her voice was anxious as she said, "I thought, since he does all those fancy acquisition and collection events…" She worried her lip slightly, remembering the exchange. "I think he liked them."

Charlie soundlessly mouthed in a mimicking way ‘fancy acquisition and collection...’ as he hefted Pascal onto his lap. Well wasn’t Tripp so terribly interesting! Charlie wondered briefly where his ego from Hogwarts had disappeared to, but years of being second string and being forced to prove oneself managed to squash most of a person’s pride. Oh, it still reared its ugly head at points, especially during the quidditch season, but sitting on the floor of his flat with the girl he nearly every day worked very hard to impress, his ego whimpered and hid under the couch feeling quite unimpressive at the moment.

What more did Charlie do that Penny hadn’t already seen before? Her brother was the better quidditch player (not the better Keeper, but), Charlie’s team made a fluke run to the cup and Drystan’s was a contender every year. There was no way any team would ever want him as their captain, but Fawcett was poised to take over McLaggen’s spot after the Euro Cup. This Tripp character did marvelous things like find ridiculous artifacts and travel around the world (or at least, Charlie figured he did). What if one day Penny realized how boring a quidditch player was, who did the same thing every year to obtain a championship that was lost with one catch of the snitch?

Pascal startled Charlie out of his thoughts with a great lick up the front of his face. Charlie spewed and spit out in disgust. This initiated a wrestling match and soon Charlie was pinned to the ground by the dog.

He let out a loud breath, sitting back up again with their dog quite firmly in his lap once more.

“Let’s hope he didn’t like them too much,” he teased, even though his eyes sent something of a warning look towards Penny. “Don’t want him getting the wrong idea.” Charlie said, knowing that he for sure would take a gift that a girl had worked on for quite some time making herself to heart.

Watching Pascal and Charlie roll about on the floor entertained her immensely, and made her think the one sad thing about Charlie returning from his vacation was that Pascal wouldn't be staying with her anymore. The absence of Rhett Butler was still keenly felt, and now that Dianna was out of the flat in all but the paperwork, Penelope was wondering if she shouldn't see about the addition of a new, furry roommate.

Perhaps that could be a Christmas present for herself. But if, and only if, she managed to finish her enormous list of other presents before then. There were still stockings to be stuffed for her niece and nephews, gifts to be wrapped for her brother and sister-in-law. Her schoolmates' has been done for a few days now, and she just had the finishing touches left for Dianna's. As for Charles, well—thinking about it just intensified that warm, glowing sort of feeling, because it was their first Christmas together, and she wanted to make it nice. No, she wanted to make it special, she thought, and hoped she would.

Focusing back on him, she smiled, though it was slightly uncertain because she could hear the tone of a joke in his voice. "What wrong idea?"

Charlie finally pushed Pascal off of his lap and clambered onto the couch beside Penelope. He considered her carefully, chin raised in his examination at her honest smile and seemingly truthful words. Perhaps he was simply jaded from his past indiscretions, that made him so ready to believe that some kindness really was just that, kindness. It was really hard to believe such an innocent face as Penelope’s would be able to hide any sort of lies of that manner, but there had been a time when Charlie’s eyes were glazed over by a simple touch of the girl’s hand and he’d ignored every sign of a cover up.

But that had changed. Penny had changed, and he had changed. Worries like this over other bloke shouldn’t seep into his mind, and even though he may have had a twinge of jealousy (more like a pinch), that didn’t mean he should jump to conclusions like he would have a year ago.

He reached out to touch some loose curls of hers and tugged lightly at her ear, “I’d hate for a bloke to get his hopes up to be with you,” he said, a grin turning up his lips, “when he’s got no bloody chance in hell.”

That smile he was studying faltered slightly as she blinked, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Charles thought Tripp was interested in her? She would have laughed, if the idea had not genuinely thrown her. Why on earth would he be? She knew with certainty that he wasn't, so it was difficult to imagine anyone, even people who weren't intimate witness to their friendship, would think otherwise. She didn't know how to categorise the prickle of unease Charlie's insinuation caused her to feel. Annoyance? Certainly bewilderment, though it was coupled with something else unpleasant.

But he was grinning now, so perhaps he didn't mean anything by it, and it was still that joke she didn't quite understand.

Even before he drew his hand back, Penelope pulled herself up to her knees and leaned forward to kiss him lightly. Though she hadn't realised it, her expression had turned more serious, with a faint line between her brow as she trailed a finger along his jaw. "No," she replied. "No chance at all."