Gweneth Popplestone is a deadly cinnamon roll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gwenniepop) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
gooseberryhigh2018-07-19 05:47 pm
gwenniepop) wrote in gooseberryhigh2018-07-19 05:47 pm
Entry tags:
During Reunion, 2025
Who: Popplestone and Wilde
What: Drinking and discussing Alaska redux
Where: At the lakeside party, 2025
When: After 10 pm
Warnings: Excessive talking about bears
There is something to be said for closure, Gwen silent admits, her eyes roaming over the crowd out by the lake. She is glad to be out of the Atrium, as nice as dinner was and catching up with Avery and Chris. The last time she’d been in that room, she’d faced a mimic who had cheated her out of her hair, and set the course for what had come after. She’d thought the Lodge would keep that chill, that dark, menacing feel, even in the daylight, colored by her memories. For ten years, she’d simply not wanted to know the truth. Did it matter? She had no cause to come back. And now..thankfully, the room had just looked like a room.
Classmates are coming and going, and she hears the shrieks of excitement as conversations ride and fall around the bar. She’s preoccupied, though. Did she need to see Ribbonfin? Did Wilde have the right of it, going back to the the place he’d died, just to truly feel it? Gwen absently rubs her throat, an old habit she usually is able to keep at bay. Dying made her less afraid, made her want to experience everything. It both lent urgency and appreciation to what she did experience. But she certainly never forgot what it felt like.
No, she hasn’t come to deal with that. At least, she doesn’t think so. She’d come to drink and see old faces and laugh about dumb things they used to do ten years ago. Play with babies she hasn’t met yet. Field the same questions, why aren’t you seeing anyone and what are you doing for a living and you went where last month? She doesn’t mind. It’s fun conversation. It makes her think, since she likes to be honest. She loves talking about her work and travel and other people’s babies.
But damnit, it would be good if she could stop worrying about Wilde and what he is facing. They’d talked about it so many times, but at its core, death is so personal. They shared a lot about it but she can’t help in this case. She can only wait and see.
--
Wilde is having a good time. Any potential ice was already broken last night, watching old friends as drunken animals and running around with Quidditch teammates in the dark, so tonight's been a breeze. He almost doesn't want it to end. As a teenager he wouldn't have been able to envision it -- too busy pretending to be cool and unaffected -- but being here after so many years, surrounded by familiar faces, is actually ... kind of nice.
Kind of. It helps that he's kind of buzzed. Beneath that, too, is a layer of golden, loose-limbed afterglow from his mushroom death adventure this morning. The one he hasn't actually checked in with Gwen about yet despite saying he would. Oops.
Wilde slides nonchalantly into place beside her, smiling a greeting through another sip of wine. It's like he's been here the whole time, see?
"'Sup. Witnessed anything super awkward yet?"
----
Gwen knows better than to be overt about pointing out he’s been gone and obviously had time to grab a drink before letting her know he is okay. So instead, she slants him a look, pointedly sips her own wine, before she says, “Super awkward? Nah, nothing on that scale. Everyone is behaving like a bunch of Ribbonfins.” She doesn’t even smile with that, although there’s a glint of amusement in her eyes. “But you never know. Could be a powder keg in here. One bitch-slap over an old fight and..” She makes a sound like a small explosion, her hand gesturing to give it some oomph.
“Anyway, you look good.” She turns so she can lean one hip against the outdoor table she’d been haunting (this had been a good spot for people watching), and act nonchalant. “Like things are going well for you. I would have liked to know about that.” She glances at her watch. “About, I don’t know…..ten hours ago?” There’s no heat in the expression, the raised eyebrow, just indulgent resignation. She’d known full well he’d say something when he was ready.
----
"Booo," Wilde intones.
His smile never falters, despite the very true nature of what she's saying. He definitely could have at least scribbled I'm okay on a journal page, indulgent resignation or no. Still -- "What can I say? Time melted and I became the earth. You know how it is."
Kidding. He leans against the same table, eyes on the milling crowd as if there may, in fact, be an incoming powder keg explosion.
"Anyway, thanks. I feel good." Wilde glances at Gwen, thinking over his words. "It's hard to describe. But, as you can see--" a gesture to his ensemble, which is passingly adult for once, "--totally fine. In one piece. No more than the usual amount of festering trauma."
--
“Your usual amount is bad enough.” She's smiling as she says it, because it is relieving to know everything went as planned. Or, barring that, good enough. “And you do look good. In that.” Her gesture encompasses his chosen attire as well. “Thank God I know what your face looks like, or I would have been thrown completely off.”
Satisfied that he's aware she worried and she got to chide him for it, Gwen crosses her arms, dangling the glass from one hand haphazardly. “Fun question to ask at our reunion,” she starts, “but did you find what you were looking for? Ignore the existential nature of that whole sentence, though. I haven't been drinking enough yet to get that far.” She grins, but she's genuinely curious; it's there in her eyes, with a bit of unsure speculation. She hasn't gone to Ribbonfin, or beyond, yet. Hell, they both know it's the first time she's set foot on the campus since they’d graduated. Sometimes they talked about it, long rambling conversations under a blanket of stars so numerous it might as well have been daytime. Other times, they just went camping and never let a word of it cross their lips. “Becoming the earth sounds good, but been there, done that.” A joke, not having any darkness after so many years. She doesn't remember what had happened to her body, after all. She only knows what she was told.
-------
Wilde does laugh at this -- the kind of laugh that is half at what she's saying, half at how it makes him feel -- but okay, maybe now the smile flickers. Just for a moment.
"I think so," he tells her, after a moment's consideration. "I couldn't tell you what I wanted to find, but I guess I found it."
At dawn, through a blur, he'd managed to see the trees as beautiful. The forest had felt like any other forest, not good and not evil, fully alive and cyclically dying at the same time.
"Honestly, I kind of just sat in the dirt for a while. I wrote an incredibly weird letter to myself and--" He pauses, momentarily lowering his voice into a self-deprecating whisper. "--Teared up at how beautiful the sun was. Maybe. For a second. Like, in a totally stoic and cinematic way. Then I went to the Pitch because Ebonhide people were there, but I was designated Too High to Fly, so I just... lay in the grass like a fucking weirdo."
It had been a nice morning. And not unlike similar adventures in the past.
He tips more wine into his mouth. "Wait, did you go out? Whack some bushes?"
---
Gwen nods along, her lips pursed in a considering expression that is almost undone by the crinkles at the corners of her eyes at his whisper. She doesn't quite smile but it's clear that she wants to. It's the look that goes with the whisper, the ease that hasn't been there before, not completely, and she's glad to see it. Worth the ten hours of worrying. Not that she had to worry. His brothers had him.
“Nah, no bushwhacking. No one else seemed up for it.” She half-shrugs, swirling the wine in her glass. “All the senior Fin girls are married now, and I think there's enough kids between the four of them to generate a ton of excuses. Ennis says we should, though.” Most of that time was spent with Avery, but still not talking about the past. Never talking about that. “So, you fucking weirdo,” she says instead, smiling again, “did you talk to your boys, in the safe space? Is there enough beer to make this a safe space?” Other than in passing, she hasn’t spoken to the Ebonboys, so she has to assume they didn't know she sanctioned the mushroom trip without snitching to them.
----
"Gross," says Wilde, off-handedly. "Why does everyone have to go and grow up lately? God."
He wrinkles his nose, but the truth is his friends are all equally "settled." Totally lucky and happy. Their kids are cute and loud and rambunctious and fun for short stretches of time. He's glad for the beauty wrought by their adulting skills. And he's fine with his own weird little life, too, chilling with Gwen here on the sidelines. Unless that's just the last of the mushrooms sparkling away in the back of his skull. Hard to tell.
He shakes his head, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "Nah. I might bring it up later when we're less surrounded by boring adults. I think it was totally obvious I was on something earlier, though."
"Also," he adds after a moment, "you should. Go, I mean. If you want. I'll come with you, minus psychedelic drugs. Orrr..." He makes a teasing face of intrigue, as he's mostly asking in jest. "Plus?"
----
“Shut up.” Because it does make her laugh, the mock disdain for their crazy happy friends with their adult lives. Like him, she doesn’t begrudge any of them what they’ve created. Sometimes, she even wonders what it’s like, but it never seems to fit the way she lives, the way they live, even though she now has a big rambling house and enough space and she certainly has enough time and money. But this fits better. Being able to indulge other people’s kids, commiserate with her old friends about problems she doesn’t have but can give fresh sympathy or perspective about. She doesn’t feel any rush to change that.
“I think it was probably obvious. On the other hand….you were preempted by drunk animals on brooms,” she points out, after a moment. “Maybe you’d have to be a lot more fucked up to rate on that scale.” She’d checked out the animagus race. That was not something she could pass up. “But the boys notice those things.”
Playing along, she makes a show of considering it. “Grown from baby seeds or something like that? I don’t think I can alter my brain for anything less than full organic Wilde-cultivated crazy pills.” They both know she’s got that streak of being straight-laced that she’ll never quite shake. She’s not unfamiliar with the mushrooms, but it tended to be rare for her. “I’ll go. Sometime. Probably.” She doesn’t know if it will be easier or harder to have him come along, she realizes. And that’s why he had to go to the trail on his own. “Still, I bit it over near the Grotto, and we’re too old for that now. We try and go over there, it could be a crapshoot if we get close or not.” An excuse. She hadn’t been that close when she died, barely past the Ribbonfin camp. Taking a liberal sip of her wine, she adds, “But…..yea. I probably should.”
------
"Maybe I'll get that fucked up tonight. Liven things up around here."
He gestures toward their old schoolmates with his now half empty glass. They do get more entertaining the more he drinks.
"Baby spores," he corrects, still joking. "See? I'm an educated professional that you can trust."
I bit it over near the Grotto. Wilde's eyes soften a bit despite the tone, and he nods. He knows his ease with this shit probably betrays a deeper unease. He supposes if it were as simple and straightforward as he makes it out to be, they all would've come out here a long time ago to reclaim these sites. He would've. But every time it had come into his mind over the years, it had never seemed like the right thing to do just yet.
"You could always come back another time," he tells her, though it's an obvious thing to say. "If it's too weird. Much."
------
“Oh, no, you aren’t abandoning me to go off and get messed up,” she protests, still amused even as she cuffs his shoulder. “You got one night to do that, but if I’m left to my own devices tonight? I’ll tell the cops for certain. Or your mom.” She knows he’ll end up with the Ebonboys anyway, which is fine. Despite the freedom they’d craved and finally attained as adults, they didn’t get together as often as they wanted, none of them. The irony of adulthood. In another day, she’d be headed back to Connecticut, after making a bunch of promises to do this more often. As long as there is a babysitter.
“You’re an educated twat, that’s what you are.” It’s easier, talking to him about this. Always has been. Maybe she should try harder, with Avery. Except stressing out a pregnant woman has to be a poor idea.
She opens her mouth to say something else, something equally offhand as her prior comment, but what comes out is, “It will always be weird. I could be a hundred and walk out on that path and I’ll be eighteen again and afraid because I know what’s happening.” She blinks at her own answer, and takes a fortifying drink of the wine. A long drink. She should stop talking. It’s a beautiful evening and people are laughing and having a good time. And she’s thinking again about looking up at trees through fog and crying because she wants her mom and she doesn’t want to die.
“Maybe some drugs, yea,” she adds, hoarsely, before blowing out her breath in a shaky sigh. “This whole place is fucked, Wilde. I’m glad we got out. If we really got out.”
------
"Snitches get sad eyes." Wilde flashes them at her over the rim of his cup. A leftover joke from somewhere, sometime or another. Maybe an early hike or a layover in an airport. He doesn't remember, but that's probably why he still threatens her with them.
He cuffs her right back, mouthing a 'boom.' "I got my degree. And maybe you should find better company before people think you're one too."
Then Wilde's turning away just slightly, distracted by a couple passing by and someone's loud exclamation from across the fire, but what Gwen says next brings him right back. He gapes at her for a small second, face darkening with concern, before she blows out that shaky breath. Then he smiles, trying to look reassuring despite the fluttery, nervous feeling in his stomach. If we got out.
And the thought of what those last moments must have been like. Maybe that's the difference between them: he still doesn't remember anything but waking up at the Oak. Never has.
"Hey," Wilde starts, softly. Then he shakes his head at himself. "I know."
All the obvious platitudes sound and feel trite and useless no matter who they're from, even ten years later. So he just reaches out to touch her on the arm, rubbing his thumb in a little circle before letting the hand fall back to his side.
"If this is a fucked up dream, I gotta say I'm really disappointed with some of the world-building."
-------
And she's still a sucker for the limpid look, softening already from her claim to rat him out, a reality he remembers even if the joke goes back into obscurity. Gwen makes a face. “Yea, put those away,” she teases. “Dangerous.”
She's not cowed by the suggestion, brushing off the return attack before they resort to an entirely childish slap fight. Which is more likely than it really should be. “Metal charmers don't need degrees,” she says, loftily, “unlike other educated twats.” Sometimes, she feels like it should have some equivalent, considering she’d spent the same amount of time cloistered away with a grumpy professor, but she wouldn't trade her time with Kallestad for anything. A true bastard but also a genius.
And the lakeside is loud and raucous with merriment and Gwen feels her words casting a small cloud over just them. She immediately regrets it; he is happy, enjoying himself and frankly, so is she. When she doesn't think about the trail, she's glad to see her senior girls, and Ennis and Yancey and everyone who'd been basically family for those years. She feels his eyes on her and she can't meet his gaze for a long minute, not until she feels the warmth of fingers against her arm, and then she can, she can look. Because he knows. Even though it hadn't been exactly the same, he still knows.
It doesn't banish the sharp pinch in her throat, like a fishhook caught there, but it helps.
“Wait a minute, my world-building is excellent,” she says, instead of thinking again about the path to the Grotto. So much closer than it's been in years. “I gave everyone what they wanted. Look at all those smiling faces.” She gestures with her glass, realizing at the same time that it's empty now. “That's some serious wish fulfillment right there. I should be proud.” She manages a smile, on more solid ground. But she'd have to face the path and she knew it now. They both did. “Should I have given you another degree? You're not happy with what you got?”
-----
Wilde can only smile when she does look at him, a warm, kind of dopey little thing that says I see you there.
Then he pulls a long sip of wine, because as chill as he's managed to be this trip, he does know exactly how she feels. There's always still the ghost of it. Plus, Gwen's glass is empty now and he definitely needs to catch up before whatever comes next. This conversation is going to be in the back of his head for the rest of the night.
"Uh, I could do without the global warming metaplot," he objects. "Or centipedes. Or so, so many things."
Wilde drains his cup. "I may be happy, but I could have been happier, Gwen. If this were really about wish fulfillment I could've gotten like three concurrent degrees and been a Quidditch star."
He taps the edge of his glass against hers to point out the mutual emptiness. It's too bad he can't think of a good way to joke along those lines without sounding bitter. Life is, actually, pretty okay. Despite the details.
-----
There’s a curl of warmth there, in her stomach, as he smiles, or maybe it’s the wine, she doesn’t know. But it’s warmth and that’s what matters, she thinks.
“I couldn’t make you too happy. You wouldn’t accept that reality. Haven’t you ever seen The Matrix? Our minds don’t accept perfection.” She pulls out her wand, feeling the same need to keep easing through this evening with alcoholic assistance. “If so, I would have gotten more dates.” There’s a thought at the back of her mind, that she hasn’t yet seen her ex, and how that’s going to happen. Shaking off that thought, a tap and each glass refills itself; she’d been happy to master this years before. “Also, this is hands down the best part of being a wizard.” To be fair, her mentor always had shitty taste in wine for some reason. Or his conjuring was poor.
“Is that what would make you happy? I mean, I’m not much good for a do-over. Clearly the lesson here is ‘put someone with more imagination in charge’.” She doesn’t take another drink yet, just swirls it there, more contemplative, even though her tone is teasing.
-----
"I could absolutely accept it if it meant automatic tenure. My mind would be like, 'You know what? Sure.'"
Wilde always enjoys this conjuring trick. He only gets it right 4 out of 5 times, but Gwen is a very steady pourer. And yes, he's already taking a sip despite her noticeable pause.
"Honestly? Who knows. I might just be wired this way. Maybe it wouldn't even matter if everything were perfect, because I'd have no idea." He takes a second sip, pretending to be a sommelier. "More imaginative dream architecture would be wasted on me. The ground-breakers are all at work for them."
He gestures vaguely at their classmates, eyes smiling still. Wilde is nowhere near as sullen as he could often be when he was younger, though he does have his moments.
"Also, dating is the fucking worst," he adds, as he always feels he must when it comes up.
------
“Yea, but how would you balance being a Quidditch star? You’d never get anything done.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Or you’d be doing everything and we’d never have time for Alaska. See, this is obviously my subconscious at work. I kept you from having too many degrees and Quidditch groupies so you’d have time to go camping with me a couple times a year.” She takes a sip of the wine, feeling a bit more fuzzy now. Better. “I’m so selfish,” she murmurs, into the glass.
His indication of all their happy classmates isn’t lost on her, and she feels the same affection towards the other former students. She and Wilde are separate right then, on the outskirts, but she likes that they don’t feel truly outside of it, even just observing. “If I can make anyone happy, there are worst choices,” she says, softly, watching them all talk and embrace. Soon enough, they’d rejoin the throng. Whenever.
Combing her hair back from her face, she unexpectedly laughs when he calls dating the worst. “Bullshit.” There’s a wry smile there, even though she’d looking at the crowd again. “I know you. You don’t mind it at all when you’re into it. Closet romantic.” She glances over, but ends up turning back to face him more directly. “That’s not a bad thing so you’d better not give me those sad eyes again.”
------
"This is a perfect world we're talking about, so that's not my problem," Wilde says, tapping his temple. "There would always be time for Alaska. And groupies. And baby spores."
She says something into her glass that he doesn't quite catch, but her voice is soft for the next something, which he does.
"Yeah," he says, in agreement. Dumb kids, all grown up. Age is making him too sentimental. Shouldn't he be totally hating this experience right now? All his coworkers had made sympathetic noises when he mentioned coming here.
"Wow." Wilde laughs brightly at Gwen's call out, then shakes his head at her. "That might be true -- note that I am not actually agreeing that it is -- but the lows are so low, my dude. I have bad taste and I know it."
It's true. He got really lucky once, and then never fully again, but that is definitely a subject for sad eyes. Even if he's had some fun along the way.
"I'll spare you," Wilde promises, though he furrows his brow in the tiniest hint of inner 'pain.' "But not because you deserve it."
-----
“There’s time now for Alaska and baby spores, but no groupies. I like my wilderness unspoiled by baggage.” She slants a look that is mildly censorious of these imaginary groupies. Not that they hadn’t invited others along on their forays, rare as it was for anyone to actually take them up on it. She doesn’t know why; their trips are only barely hazardous.
“How do I deserve that, just because you have bad taste?” She almost wants him to make the face again. It’s endearing and it makes her laugh every time, even when she rolls her eyes. She needs the laugh, to go with the languid warmth from the wine because she feels the lingering subject they aren’t talking about. Impossible to really outrun around here, anyway. “And it doesn’t change you being a closet romantic. Look at you, all soft over these babies out there.”
Now she’s turned on him, idly poking him with a finger of accusation, grinning. She has to hold her wineglass out of the way, lest they run into a party foul. “You’re wasting all your affection on Sid. Wait, that sounded wrong,” she adds, holding up her hand in mock truce. “Sid deserves all of the affection, ever. But so do you.” She blinks at her own words, and then looks askance at her wineglass. “Wow, did we hit that glass already? So soon.”
-----
"Wow," Wilde repeats. "You're camping with the wrong person if you don't like baggage."
Mostly a joke. "In this version of reality, all my groupies are intrusive thoughts." Another tap to the temple, and he drains a last swallow of wine from his glass -- except he almost spits it out at the sudden poke of her finger, which he fends off with his free hand like a pro fencer.
"Oh my god, not you too." All soft over these babies out there. Wilde composes himself, running fingers through his hair, though there's a new little rush of color to his face. He'd retort that Sid deserves all the love in the world, but Gwen does it for him, so he just shrugs. "All my children are silent, well-behaved, and confined to a research greenhouse. You know what really kills the romance? Real kids."
This line of jest is one he uses to tease his friends all the time, mostly because it's so clearly untrue in their cases.
"Okay, so do your trick again," Wilde commands, holding out his empty glass. "Then you definitely won't deserve sad eyes."
-----
“Our baggage doesn’t count.” A double standard she has no problem espousing. Some of their trips happened solely because of that baggage, after all. Forests had been hard, at first. “At least I only have to carry half of it.”
Her teasing has the desired effect, and Gwen smiles with vindication. “You spoil that hedgehog as if he were your only baby. Tas is getting ancient, too, but I’m not that bad.” A glint comes into her eyes. “It’s really a shame. I saw something on the Anon post about how fantastic your genes are. A whole bunch of people were on board. You’re depriving someone of smart plant-babies.”
She wonders if she can get the color to intensify. Always a fun exercise.
“Mine’s not empty.” She pointedly takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of the glass. He has sad eyes, but she has innocent ones.
-----
Wilde hates and loves that glint.
"I have always been this way and no one ever gave me shit about it before," he points out.
The mention of the anon post makes him snort. He's not even actually super embarrassed about that conversation, despite not knowing how to respond. Weirdly flattered, maybe.
Still: "Dude. Who even?" He makes a little face, because it was very obvious who even. All his friends. "But honestly? Maybe I'll get in touch. Then I technically did my genetic duty and everyone can leave me alone forever about settling down."
It's not that it bothers him, exactly. Maybe it bothers him that he can't seem to get a handle on things other people seem to find so straightforward. Then again, there are things he can do that they can't. Or maybe, actually, none of this really matters that much to him when he’s not surrounded by the young families of his peers.
Wilde is still holding his glass like he's expecting a refill. "I can wait," he informs her. "Or maybe I'll just go find something harder."
-----
“I have always given you shit about it.” Not true. If there is anyone who spoils Sid more than he does, it’s her. But as far as she’s concerned, being a hedgehog is the only criteria needed to be adorable.
“I could make some bets. There was a lot about genetic engineering on that post, and that narrows the field. I’d watch where you put down that glass.” The one he is still offering out and that she’s still ignoring, just to see how long he’ll last before pulling the sad eyes. Or the threats. Both are entertaining.
“No one will leave you alone about it, you know. And stop, with that face.” She says it like she doesn’t really want him to stop. She puts her wand on top of the glass, mostly because she knows she’s about to say something more serious and he’ll want the wine. “It’s too early to go hard. Save that for the after-after party.” Glass refilled, she clinks her own glass against his.
“They’re happy, that’s all.” The others milling about. A few say hello in passing but are swept along with the crowd. “And they want you to be happy, so they offer up all the things that have made them that way. Kids are a big one. A significant other, too.” She’s going to say something else, but instead she shrugs. “It’s okay that we didn’t do the same, you know. Stick with our high school sweethearts and such.” Not a way it had been phrased before, but she feels the same pressure from everyone else. All four of the others in her cabin had married a school boyfriend. Well, someone has to break the pattern, she supposes.
-----
Wilde looks amused. "Addy sounds like Addy over any medium."
Now he will never stop with this face, he decides, except that he breaks into a satisfied little smirk at the pour. Of course, he doesn't realize it's in prelude to more serious talk, which he should have expected. This conversation ebbs and flows.
Gwen offers up a theory that he's considered himself, so he agrees, voice just slightly distant, a beat after she's finished. "Right. I mean, of course it's okay. It's life."
His continued friendship with Saira says as much, though sometimes he still thinks of her and feels a phantom ache. The complexities of those feelings and regrets would take a whole night to explain, even though the few times he's seen her the last handful of years were all absolutely fine and calm and good. Thinking of them presently reminds him of Webster, and he considers asking Gwen if she's seen him yet, but... He finds he doesn't want to. Although, maybe that would be the nice friend thing to do? Sometimes he's not sure.
"I'm honestly going to need to be way more drunk to talk about this," he admits after a moment, teasing but honest. Then he has to laugh a little at himself. Dumb. "And I plan to be, kiddies be damned. I know my rights as cool uncle."
-----
She eyes the smirk, debating whether or not to get another jab in there, the same way she weighs if she wants one more bite of dessert; how much will she enjoy it, and so on. But she lets it go because she’s blunt, and she knows she has never mastered tact in all the years since. And because he puts up with it.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she offers, although usually when they say that, it’s almost a guarantee they will. Maybe they are both secretly masochists. “It’s the elephant in the room, though, isn’t it? Or the toddlers in the room. They are practically the same thing.” Because she thinks about it from time to time. And as she did point out once, she could have just done it on her own if she really wanted, had a child and been a single parent, because she has the resources. She works for herself, at home. Avery or Calvin or even Rosy would gladly add any child she had to their brood so she could still run off and camp or travel. But it felt….clinical to think of it that way.
“Seriously,” she says instead, and it’s easier to chuckle about it because they are on their way to being drunk, “we don’t need to.” But also because drinking can lead to bad decisions, she adds, “Are both our respective exes going to be here then?”
-----
"A little bit. And every time you look away from the elephant, it side-steps and shoves more little elephants in your face until you hold one for a while."
Wilde pauses, then shrugs his shoulders amiably at her question. "I seriously have no idea. I haven't talked to her in a while."
There's a micro-pause in there, which he treats like something natural and unconscious. As embarrassing as it is, Saira's name still has weight to him in a casual context. Even a handful of girlfriends and one brief fiancee later.
But Webster is totally easier to talk about. On second thought, Wilde can totally ask about Webster. He takes a neat swallow of wine, then smiles evenly at Gwen, friendly but with a tiny affectionate bite.
"Is yours?” he ventures, leaning in an little. “I haven’t seen him yet.”
-----
“They are cute elephants, though. Not too heavy.” There is no way she will say any less about her own favorites, like Calvin and Micah’s most amazing daughter. Really, Gwen can’t compete and that’s a good excuse as any.
She almost fills in that pause. She has, in the past. Always blunt. But here, on the grounds of their alma mater, where those relationships had been formed and flourished, it is as if the ghosts of romances past are hovering, picking apart any mention, and shoving it all full of outdated regrets. She doesn’t feel like she has the right to say Saira’s name. She’s not sure why.
“He’s here.” A pause, asking for explanation. “I mean, he said he would be here by now. I assume he’s here. Said he was looking forward to seeing me, so….seems like a reasonable expectation?” She means it to be devil-may-care, all you know how it goes but there are those ghosts again, pricking at her. Regrets, not so much about what’s lost but because it was her fault. Her single-minded devotion to her career.
“You’re taller than me,” she points out, to inject some sort of leavening to the heaviness in her stomach. It’s ridiculous because he’s maybe got a couple inches at most. “Maybe you could spot him for me, giraffe.”
-----
Wilde brings his free hand up to his eyes, pretending to scan the crowd for incoming musicians.
"Looking forward to seeing you," he repeats, casual. "Interesting. So if I see the guy, should I warn you or wave him over?"
It's a way of asking how she really feels without really asking. Not that it matters how she really feels about Webster. It's not unreasonable for him to be kind of curious for comparative purposes. Or other ones. It's a caring friend kind of thing to ask. He is totally not nosy whatsoever.
-----
“It's Webster. If there's anyone who can out-do me for niceness, it's him.” She's resigned, with a trace of affection for her old boyfriend. The kind that says she's aware someone is probably better than she deserves. “When he says things like that, he just means he’s looking forward to seeing me. I'm not sure subtext enters into it.” After they’d broken up, her explanation had been to Wilde that naturally, it didn't work out so well when one half of a duo is traveling all over and the other half is in flipping Norway.
“Tell you what. If Lilika is with him, at least give me a head’s up? I don't know how she has changed over the years but I'd like to have a protection charm up just in case.” She takes a long drink of her wine. “I'm the shitheel who broke her boy’s heart, you know. I think that's how it goes.” A thought occurs to her. “And make sure that I'm not talking to Casper at the same time or she might stab me in the back.” It’s mostly teasing, as she figures Lilika had left behind old grudges ten years ago. But one could never be too careful.
------
Wilde doesn't mean to find any of this amusing, but he can't help it.
"I got you," he promises, in 'grave' assurance at her request. "But there's only so much anyone can do if she starts mouthing off." Mimics couldn't stop Lilika's mouth. Neither can he. Plus, she's hilarious.
He does smile though, to underscore that he's here for Gwen. As unlikely, probably, as any kind of actual drama should be.
But now he's kind of curious, so he does gaze out across the area to see if he can spot either of the pair. It's hard to tell with the movement of the crowd, though, and in a weird way, when he isn't trying it's almost like he doesn't recognize anyone at all. But it still feels good, in here. The energy remains pleasant despite his increasing buzz, which is evolving kind of a dangerous flavor as the hours roll on.
"I think you're getting better every time," he tells Gwen after a moment playing look-out, indicating the glass in his hand. "Maybe void wine could be your side hustle."
-----
“Oh, jeez, you can laugh, I know it’s funny,” Gwen retorts, with a good-natured roll of her eyes. “What is more sad is that I really wanted her to like me. Damnit, she liked everyone else. She became friends with Casper, even, and we all know that takes persistence.” She says all of this with the long-suffering humor of knowing it was high school drama and there’s little to be done. “But she couldn’t stand me. I’m cool, right?” She flashes him a look that promises vengeance for any wrong answer. It’s an I know where you live glance. “Still, if we’re doing some knock-down drag-out wrestling, her cheering section is going to be bigger.”
Huffing a laugh as he held up his glass, she waves it away with a slightly unsteady gesture. Yes, they are getting nicely along on this trip to get messed up. “People in Norway drink strong stuff,” she offers. “The further along I get tonight, probably the closer it’s going to get to akvavit. Best part is you won’t even notice, because it will knock you on your ass. I’m a champ now.” She pauses, then says contemplatively, “I’m not entirely sure that seeing him will be better drunk or sober, but..” She looks down at her glass. “I’d say the decision has been made for me.”
-----
Wilde shrugs, mouth curling in a crooked grin. Old drama. He finds it cute -- recounting the story thoroughly, in that little tone like it's tired news. If asked about his episodes of drama in highschool, he'd have nothing but the latter. A lot of things that mattered a lot once have absolutely escaped his memory now, in terms of detail.
"So cool," he soothes, in the same voice he uses when Sid's prickles are starting to poke too sharp. Then he winks. "And a fight at your ten year reunion would only make you cooler."
The millionth mouthful of wine. "Hey, bring it, Popplestone. Fuck me up with your Aquafina.”
He furrows his brow, though, at the next mention of Webster. Maybe she is a bit more worried about it than she's letting on, even if the dude is ridiculously too fucking nice. Wilde has no idea what to do with that, though, so he acts like it's all totally cool.
"That's the spirit."
-----
“Don’t patronize me.” She’s still smiling as she says it, albeit kinda wobbly and making a halfway attempt to get her own prickles up. And failing. “A fight would make me cooler. But let’s be honest, she’d kick my ass.” There’s no trace of resentment or defeat there, just amused directness. “I’ve got less hair to pull now, so that’s a bonus. Girl fights need lots of hair pulling.” There’s a bit of color in her face now, because she likes the cooing reassurance that she’s probably not a huge dork. Which she is. Even conjuring up wine.
“Alright, hand over the glass, I got this.” Famous last words, maybe, but she’d done enough drinking over the last few years to keep a deft hand even when on her way to plastered. “There is a lot to do in Norway in the winter, but not that much. Drinking and screwing around are the big draws.” The liquid that fills his glass this time is a pale amber color, almost like champagne. “Tada...there’s your Aquafina.” She laughs, low. “Don’t drink it like water, though. And oh my god, we maybe should find a place to sit? I feel like leaning against this table is destined for failure at some point.” Almost an hour, at least four glasses. Tough guys that they are.
“Hey, you think you’re real different from back in school?” she ventures, apropos of nothing. It’s not entirely from nothing, although he doesn’t know that. But she is wondering what Webster would think of her now. Definitely, there’s more cursing. Interesting bonus, if she really thinks about it.
------
"I was being sarcastic," Wilde informs her, with a quirk of an eyebrow. Just to prod those prickles. "And Lilika has an unfair advantage because she's psychic or whatever, so the odds... don't count?" He gives up here, now that his brain is tangling over jokes about hair pulling like a fucking thirteen year old.
He lifts his hand to eye the unfamiliar liquor. A look of amusement is distorted through the glass. "What, are we not doing shots?"
The truth is, most of the time his tolerance is pretty okay. He can champion with the best of them. But that's when he's been treating himself properly, which he hasn't exactly managed since arriving. It's yet to become a regret, but he still has a whole night for that. And then a lifetime to forget about it if it does.
He laughs a little at Gwen, tickled, and nods at the cluster of seating around the bonfire. "Dude, are you going to fall over? Okay. C'mon."
Then she asks a good question out of nowhere.
When they've settled again, seated in chairs with the fire warming their faces, he considers pretending he doesn't remember it was asked. But he can't quite do that kind of thing with Gwen anymore. Can't really pull it off after ten years of texting and trips. Instead he takes his time to think, makes himself comfortable, and brings the akvavit to his lips. It's not exactly as he expects -- he does grimace just slightly at the flavor -- but it's something, all right. He feels a warmth roll down his throat and into his stomach, then reaches out for to cheers for the third time.
"Yes and no," he finally says. "I think I'm easier now. Like. With myself. On myself. If that makes any sense. But I don't know how much of that was actually growing up right or..." Wilde trails off. "You know."
“Or did you mean that in another way?” He wonders. “Because I just said some real shit.”
-----
“Look, just don’t show up to the fight with a Lilika poster, and we’re good,” she offers, eying him, humored. She knows what he’s doing, just to get a reaction. Most of the time it even works, sucker that she is, until he gives it away by laughing. Gwen suspects she’ll never really learn. On purpose.
“Oh, no, I made you say some real shit.” There is no apology in that tone, as she tries not to sprawl, given that it feels a bit better to be more supported than just the table was offering. She settles for tucking her foot under her other leg. “You can do it as a shot,” she adds, gesturing to the glass. “But just the one. I’m not going to get dinged for taking you out early on, before you’ve really gotten to enjoy the party.” She laughs, and puts her hand over her face in a vain attempt to stifle it. “Party pooper Popplestone. I’m done for.”
She likes his answer. You know. She does; the reason they’d bonded early on had been because finding someone else who understands that one particular experience is rare. Even as their friendship grew, it flavored things. Many times, Gwen found herself grateful for the first time he’d reached out, to the ‘Dead Kids Club’ as they called it, because it led to the last ten years of having someone who got her, and how she’d changed.
“Yea, well, I didn’t just mean that scruff you like to sometimes call a beard,” she jokes, after a moment. “I think we should just call it ‘baby spores’ because it’s about on the same level.” She expects the sad eyes, or another jab, grinning a little, before she says, “I do feel the same. I’m less….anxious about everything. Uptight. Everything used to make me crazy back then. It was Defcon 5 when I had an emotion.” She smiles ruefully, more to herself, as she takes a drink. “I like being more at ease.”
-----
"Oh no," Wilde drawls, in a monotone echo. He wrinkles his nose cutely at Gwen, leaning back into his chair, and takes a pointed sip of akvavit.
Then he shakes his head. "I'm not quite at the point where I'm taking shots by myself. But the night is young, so don't worry. You might get credit anyway."
"Also," he continues, raising his eyebrows in mock insult, "I'll have you know this scruff is an aesthetic choice."
Sometimes when he's in a bad or too-busy place he looks a bit more like a mountain man, and his students make fun of him on the wizarding equivalent of ratemyprofessor. So, honestly, what's a guy to do?
But Wilde softens a bit as Gwen continues, nodding. He knows that feeling, even if it'd expressed a bit differently in him. Where she’d bloomed with tension, he'd always locked himself down.
"I'm glad you figured things out," he tells her, sincere. "Defcon 5 is an exhausting place to live."
------
“Ten years later and I'm the wet blanket, thanks.” She extends her leg so she can poke him with her foot. It doesn't have much to it since she's just wearing sandals, the closest thing she likes to dressing up. It goes with a skirt, that's all that matters.
“An aesthetic choice? I bet those college girls tell you it’s scruffy-chic.” The suggestive look is slightly ruined by her snicker. “I like it when we’re on a long trip and you don't bother to shave, because it scares off the other yeti.” It’s still affectionate, lacking any bite. Familiar.
“It is. It was,” she corrects herself, softly, still with that small smile. “Everyone always telling me to relax. I always wanted things to be perfect, you know? Sorta built up those years like I had to make just the right memories, before it was all over.” She's looking away from him now, at the lakeside at large, eyes unfocused. “You only get one senior year and all that. I thought it would set the course for my life, maybe.” She rests her glass against her thigh. “I suppose in a way, it did.”
-----
"You could take a night off."
It does, in fact, take some slight effort to look as no effort as Wilde does most of the time. Or at least, that's what he tells himself.
He lets out a little breath that says everything on its own. "Undergrads." He tips his chin just slightly as if 'reminiscing', then laughs. "Oh my god. Uh, no, that's the surf punk. I thought we established that."
The angle for people-watching is still quite good, now that they've moved. He squints at a slight commotion taking place near a refreshment table, preoccupied with trying to recognize one of the participants, then contributes: "Everything matters and doesn't matter. But here we are."
Easy to say something like that now, hanging out, safe and happy, with a reasonable expectation of a continued upward course in life. Wilde takes a slightly larger drink of the liquor, feeling suddenly restless with himself.
------
“This whole night is my night off.” Gwen rests her elbow on the back of the seat so she can prop her temple against her fingers. Despite the fact that they often hang out and she sees him more often than any other classmates, the evening still feels different, in a nice way. Gooseberry holds some terrible memories for them. But it also holds a million great ones.
Her eyes flick over to him as he laughs. She likes it because he usually only rewards her with a tease back. “You're my own personal yeti, J. Accept it.”
But she's spent enough time with him to see when his mood flickers. “You want to be off, doing things?” she says, quiet. “You’ve got that look in your eye.”
-----
Wilde turns, readjusting slightly so that he's facing Gwen. "Good," he says, meaning it, through another taste of akvavit.
"I like this stuff, by the way. I feel like I could jump in a fjord or whatever."
There's a current of music playing under the chatter and boisterous noise of the party, and he bobs his head to it for a second, playful, before resting it against the back of the chair. "If I'm a yeti, what does that make you?"
Her answer to the next question is a considering silence, then another loose shrug. "I could make rounds soon, probably," he says. "But I'm cool."
Typical, Wilde's mood has already flickered right back -- though now that his head has something to rest against, there's a delicate hint of after-effect druggy sparkle in the back of his skull. Must still be working through it.
Whatever. There's no rush, though he is kind of wondering what's up with his friends. "I can't believe no one's started a Quidpong game. Maybe I will."
-----
“I think that's actually what some people do on akvavit. At least swim the fjords, ice floes and all.” She finishes her own wine, and then pauses as she pulls her wand. “Not my favorite, though. You remember what I like.” She has to concentrate, this time, but the resulting drink is a much darker color. A mead, one she's actually conjured for them before, when their chosen locale got too frigid and needed warming up. “You know, I'm not sure Kallestad counts this spell as one of the important things he ever taught me, but it really ranks high up there.”
Thankfully she's not taking a drink when he returns the jibe about the yeti. “I'm the girl who hangs out too much with yetis, clearly,” she laughs, her shoulders shaking a little with mirth. “I should really get into surf punk. That might help.”
The music is nice and Gwen realizes she's gotten a lot more relaxed as they chat, or probably because of how much they are drinking. But for now, she doesn't have to watch what she says or how she says it. There's still a lot on her mind, but it's retreated to a nice, safe distance. Until the boys come and collect him, at least. “I'm really glad you're here,” she offers, contemplative. “This would have sucked a lot more otherwise. I mean, I’m happy to see everyone, but it's a lot less stressful.” She sips her drink. “Or maybe that's the wine talking. Goddamn wine.” Smiling at him, she adds, “You could start some Quidpong, but I bet you right now a bunch of drunken animals will take over. Actual, drunken animals.”
--
"See? I got the vibe. So your void akvavit"--a tiny superior look here, when he manages to repeat after her properly-- "must be legit. Thanks, Kallestad."
Yeah. Wilde would absolutely jump in a fjord right now if one appeared right in front of them. Maybe it's warm enough for skinny-dipping this time of year, actually. He imagines jumping off the docks in his super decent outfit, but of course that entails remembering the docks, and suddenly the idea is no longer so whimsical.
But lo, a happy distraction. He takes one look at the mead and makes a pleased sound of recognition despite immediate complaint: "That stuff is too fucking sweet." Not that it stopped him from drinking it before. Or ever.
It's a testament to his still-sparkly circumstances when Wilde laughs, because it's solely at the way Gwen's merriment shapes her words. Her shoulders are shaking like he's actually succeeding at being clever, and that's always nice. So he has to agree: "It's been pretty okay."
The returning smile is genuine, if very slightly shy. Just at the edges. "... I mean, the wine does help. Don't badmouth our mutual friend."
He thinks about asking what else any of them have ever been but a drunken animal, but the grinning gaze stretches on just slightly too long instead, thanks mostly to the aforementioned mutual friend. So he just lifts his glass to his mouth instead and turns back to the crowd.
-----
She rewards him with a wink when he manages to repeat the word, inflection and all. It’s potent stuff, she knows, but there's a reason they drink it at holidays. Makes everything more fun. “It's sweet,” she concedes, with exactly zero regret in that admission, “but it make me drink it slower. This place is getting warm enough, with this many people.”
She sighs happily on the tail end of their laughter, glad again that this keeps her from dwelling on the locale. Like him, her smile lingers a bit long, but she doesn't realize it. It feels natural. “I'm not going to knock our favorite camping buddy,” she answers, toasting briefly with the glass of mead. “It's gotten us through some truly hairy situations.” Perhaps not gotten them through, but helped them retell it later.
That prompts her to ask, “Hey, what are we going to do tomorrow? After all the partying and such? Are we done, you think, head back?” She's strangely reluctant to think about that. Because she hasn't planned yet when she’ll go out to the trails. Tonight, except maybe it will be worse in the dark. Maybe it won't matter.
------
"I hadn't thought about it," Wilde admits. "I might hang out. Sleep this off. Go somewhere else for a day instead of heading back."
He has nomadic tendencies and no one expecting him anywhere until Tuesday. One never knows when there might be need for a vacation to get over the current vacation.
"We should figure out Alaska redux, though." It's probably what they'd talk about, if they headed back together. We. "I'm not gonna forget even if I drink like six of these."
He waggles his now empty glass.
-----
“Damn, you saw through my transparent attempt to take Alaska off the calendar.” She obligingly taps his glass for a refill, but it’s the mead instead of the akvavit this time. “I’m cutting you back.“ Too late, she realizes she lumped them together for the trip back, out of habit, like this is just another excursion, where they are killing time in an airport or waiting on a portkey.
“I’ll probably stop over and see Calvin and Micah, if they are free,” she says, musingly. “There’s no way I’ll get two seconds with them in this crowd. Especially considering how much Micah likes talking.” It hadn’t been her plan, but it feels safer to have something or else she’d wander all over the campus. “I sent an owl to Covington, see if he’d like to go for a ride for old times sake, too.” She still loved riding, even if she had nowhere to keep animals other than Tas on her small property.
“Alright, Alaska.” Making a show of getting comfortable, as if this is going to be a slog, she adopts a long-suffering expression. The amusement in her eyes ruins it. “September will be here before we know it. Denali will still have tourists then, though.” She brightens. “Katmai? Not enough moose, but I’ll live. Too hard for No-maj to reach, so it should be pretty empty.”
-----
"Covington must be like a thousand years old now," Wilde must remark. He takes the teeniest exploratory sip of the mead, which will take him a thousand years to drink, it's so sweet. "...Where do Calvin and Micah live again?"
He doesn't actually care. He's just being nice for you, Gwen. Because Alaska. Smirking, Wilde adopts a similar settled posture, though his looks a bit more triumphant.
"Katmai," he confirms. It sounds a bit like the sarcastic grunt he uses when trying to cheer for a Quidditch team and not look that into it, despite the fact that he completely is and has pennants up in his office and everything. All-Stars. "We're totally going to Brooks Camp. Cos there might not be moose, but there'll still be fuckin' bears in September."
More thoughtfully, he adds: "And that place with the lava flows or whatever. We have to go there too."
-----
“He’s not a thousand. It’s been one whole decade. Barely enough time for either of us to have learned how to drive.” She still doesn’t know. She hates cars mostly because they are so limited. Brooms for life. “Anyway, all the Jays live on this same little street, so that’s where Calvin is too, but mostly I see them in LA. That’s a lot of Jays for one person to be surrounded by.” She says it with a brief mock shudder. There’s a lot to be said for distance. She likes being able to retreat to her out of the way place.
“Oh, there are bears. Fat, slow bears, getting ready to bed down. Well, fat but still hungry bears.” She makes a crooked half-frown as she considers it. “Brooks Camp, fine, but I’m not sitting through any more bear-themed safety talks and certainly not any more bear videos. I’m bear-ed out. Do you see me making us watch salmon videos all the time?” She tips her glass up and takes a swallow. “I mean, I guess I get to see salmon when the bears are eating them, sure.”
She slants a sad look at him. Her mournful look is not as good as his but she does alright. “You owe me moose. What about the Colville River? And if we head over to the Aleutians, we will be the only ones, because they’ve got active flows right now.”
-----
He may not have been particularly interested to start with, but Wilde cackles out loud at the news of Jay Street. It's not an unkind laugh, considering. "Oh my god."
As for bears and fish --
"It's the circle of life," Wilde comments sagely, around a pecking of mead. "Take it up with your dream architect if you don't like it."
Her sad eyes would be easier to ignore if they belonged to someone else, and if he didn't have to look at them through such a pleasant veneer of ease and tipsiness. He pouts momentarily, playing along, then brightens. "Okay. I have a proposition."
Wilde leans forward to speak more closely, voice low as if conveying a secret mission. He's... completely amused with himself. "We can totally do the Colville River, if you'll settle for caribou instead of moose. And I'm going to take down a mark for every one I see, and that's how many days long Alaska redux redux will take in a couple years. What do you say?"
It's a great plan, clearly. With an afterthought: "And Aleutians, obviously. Definitely."
And an afterthought of an afterthought, murmured with amusement: "You know there are bears there too, right?"
------
“My dream architect would totally punish me with bears,” Gwen answers, her tone dry. “I rather wish in retrospect that I hadn’t taken Divination, because I don’t want to know what that says about me.” Truthfully, she likes the bear hunts they’ve gone on ever since finding a tiny, almost mythical population of brown bears in Ovre Pasvik National Park during her apprenticeship. But she didn’t like to let him off that easy.
She smiles as her own pouty look works, and leans closer conspiratorially, even though she senses a trap. Well, she is never good at avoiding those anyway. He knows her too well.
“Wait, first off, caribou aren’t the same as moose. I don’t make you count lilies when you are looking for roses,” she retorts, her knee bumping against his for emphasis. “But…” She draws out the word, consideringly. She already knows if he pulls his own sad look, she’s going to give in. “I do like caribou. So, for every one we get to see, that’s one day for Alaska redux redux.” She holds up a finger. “And for every bear that we see, that’s one day in….New Zealand.” She pauses. “We could do the Waitomo caves. And this has nothing at all to do with hobbits.” Or her weird thing about seeing the sets from movies. Not at all. She smiles winningly, holding out her glass so they can toast to the agreement. “But, if we’re there, we could see the whole village. Just saying.”
-----
"Hmm." Wilde raises an eyebrow. If he were slightly more sober he'd ask about bears and symbolism, but -- as totally fine and incredibly sober and clever as he is, it's too much effort. He muddles anyway: "Legitimate. But one bear is enough punishment, and I metaphorically count. So according to rules that I'm totally making up as I go, your balance is settled."
He bumps right back, though his knee is bruised from a boarding fall last week. Some things never change.
"That's why I said if you'd settle," he chides, playful. "And deal. Hobbiton, it's on."
Wilde makes a show of tapping his glass against hers. The movement has faux gravitas.
"Hey, Gwen?" He gives her a serious, considering look, as if weighing a choice in his mind. Then he bends in closer, further lessening the distance between them, and whispers
"Nerd" before leaning back away again, gazing innocently out at the party again.
-----
“I’m counting you as one bear towards my total days,” Gwen promises, gleefully. “I could be a shit and count each day I see you as another one, but that’s just cheating.” And she’s too honest, a real drawback right at that moment. “I like when you make up rules that benefit me.” Unrepentant, that smile.
As soon as he caves, she makes a small, excited sound in her throat, wriggling in place in her chair. She loves when she can drag him to some random movie-trivia locale, especially if she can trick him into not expecting it. However, there is never an easy way to trick someone into New Zealand. She manages to school her features enough to close the deal with the sound of the glasses meeting, but her eyes are still dancing as she looks at him, pleased as punch.
Still, she wrinkles her brow at his sudden serious look, and finds herself leaning over as well, wondering what he’s going to say. Perhaps the alcohol is lowering a few long-standing barriers, but she’s drawn in easily, and strains to hear his whisper.
“Oh, my God,” she splutters, caught between outrage and laughter. “You prick. Just for that, we’re taking a side quest to Angkor Thom so I can pretend to be Lara Croft, and you have to be my dumb sidekick.”
-------
"Ooh, one day," Wilde teases, a brat. "You really got me there."
And then he's very serious, of course, but can't even pretend for that long. Her response to his stupid joke is very satisfying. Maybe this is part of why they get along the way they do.
"We already cheers-ed," he informs her triumphantly, enunciating. "It's too late to add new terms, tomb raider."
Wilde leans comfortably back against his chair with a deliberate air of self-satisfaction. Obviously Angkor Thom sounds rad, and he'd absolutely carry her gear for a mile or two if she really wanted. Make some stupid, self-aware comments. Curse over a sudden snake appearance and beg her to come look. He's done all of these things before and he's not ashamed of them.
-----
“I only need one day as a Hobbit.” She reconsiders. “That’s not true. I need more days. Hobbits are cool and I'm cool. You said so.” The alcohol is getting to the reasoning stage, right on time.
“Hey, that's Miss Croft to you, sir.” She's still got that mock glare for his nerd comment but she's going to enjoy this. “I'm a respected archeologist, in booty shorts. I don't care about exposing vulnerable parts of my body in a dangerous jungle. That's how kick-ass I am.” She's already warming to the idea, even though they've clearly got the next two trips already locked down. Playing the heroine on a cool hike, when she knows he'll play along, tickles her thoroughly. No matter what ideas she comes up with, he always improves them.
Laughing, she adds, “I love all the stuff we do.”
-----
Wilde makes a who knows sort of gesture, wetting his lips with mead. "Are they, though? I want you to search your truest heart right now and get back to me. I can't be an authority here." He nods at his glass, still very full. "It's just not responsible, Gwen."
He does enjoy a good pseudo-mean look. Like, historically. Theoretically. Hers might need slight practice to be truly almost cutting -- the kind where you're not totally sure if it's actually in jest -- but it's passable. Cute. Really cute. "Toss in an early 2000s soundtrack and I'm in. Minus booty shorts. The test audience hated them."
I love all the stuff we do. Wilde can’t help but grin. It’s slightly softer than he realizes. There's a hint of a nod, too, which may or may not just be for the music again.
"Well, I just like it," he jokes, which is absolutely untrue. "But I think Alaska redux will bump you up a couple of stars. I have a good feeling."
-----
“Hobbits are cool.” She almost whispers it, fiercely, to herself, a little reassurance. Yes, she is a terrible nerd. “I mean, not as cool as the Riders of Rohan, but still.” She has a not-very-well hidden thing for Eowyn, but she doesn’t share that in polite company.
She’s unaware that her look comes across like something an adorably disgruntled hedgehog might manage. “No one really likes those shorts,” she agrees. “Especially since she wears thick hiking socks with boots anyway.” As far as she would ever get into critiquing fashion; if a fictional character wore it, and her critique never made sense.
Her expression says she wants to act offended, but they are too at ease now, too relaxed with the mead, so she says, instead, “I know the way to your heart, Wilde. It’s bears. If I take you somewhere with bears, I’m automatically great again.” She holds out her glass. “To Alaska. The state obviously salvaging my reputation.”
-----
"Death?" Wilde asks, in a quiet voice.
He wrinkles his nose just slightly in mock agreement, though he finds he can't actually picture what they're trying to talk about anymore. What's wrong with hiking boots? Socks? He needs a glass of water, honestly, but Gwen's mead stays with him seemingly no matter how much of it he swallows. This is how nights like this always start. He knows he's ready for anything now.
Wilde's in the midst of another drink when Gwen toasts, so he lowers it and taps his glass against hers a final time.
"To Alaska redux and redux redux," he agrees, then drains the cup entirely. The pull is impressive, but it's so sweet he coughs afterward, ruining the effect.
"Okay," he says, final, "I gotta go do the rounds before I stop making sense. Thanks for playing conjurer."
-----
To anyone else, it would be an odd comment, out of context and sobering. But Gwen smiles, a small, pleased smile, almost into her glass. “Death,” she repeats, since they both know the meaning of this little reference.
The sound of their glasses breaks the reverie, which is good, because she’s been drinking enough to really get to the movie quotations part of this evening, and he has been subjected to enough of that in the past. “Wow, I’m impressed,” she comments to his downing of the mead, in a tone that says she is totally not. Her smirk gives way to a shrug and a more casual smile.
“Be off with you then,” she intones, with a wave of her free hand. “Remember, though, don’t leave your glass lying around or else your DNA will get swiped.”
What: Drinking and discussing Alaska redux
Where: At the lakeside party, 2025
When: After 10 pm
Warnings: Excessive talking about bears
There is something to be said for closure, Gwen silent admits, her eyes roaming over the crowd out by the lake. She is glad to be out of the Atrium, as nice as dinner was and catching up with Avery and Chris. The last time she’d been in that room, she’d faced a mimic who had cheated her out of her hair, and set the course for what had come after. She’d thought the Lodge would keep that chill, that dark, menacing feel, even in the daylight, colored by her memories. For ten years, she’d simply not wanted to know the truth. Did it matter? She had no cause to come back. And now..thankfully, the room had just looked like a room.
Classmates are coming and going, and she hears the shrieks of excitement as conversations ride and fall around the bar. She’s preoccupied, though. Did she need to see Ribbonfin? Did Wilde have the right of it, going back to the the place he’d died, just to truly feel it? Gwen absently rubs her throat, an old habit she usually is able to keep at bay. Dying made her less afraid, made her want to experience everything. It both lent urgency and appreciation to what she did experience. But she certainly never forgot what it felt like.
No, she hasn’t come to deal with that. At least, she doesn’t think so. She’d come to drink and see old faces and laugh about dumb things they used to do ten years ago. Play with babies she hasn’t met yet. Field the same questions, why aren’t you seeing anyone and what are you doing for a living and you went where last month? She doesn’t mind. It’s fun conversation. It makes her think, since she likes to be honest. She loves talking about her work and travel and other people’s babies.
But damnit, it would be good if she could stop worrying about Wilde and what he is facing. They’d talked about it so many times, but at its core, death is so personal. They shared a lot about it but she can’t help in this case. She can only wait and see.
--
Wilde is having a good time. Any potential ice was already broken last night, watching old friends as drunken animals and running around with Quidditch teammates in the dark, so tonight's been a breeze. He almost doesn't want it to end. As a teenager he wouldn't have been able to envision it -- too busy pretending to be cool and unaffected -- but being here after so many years, surrounded by familiar faces, is actually ... kind of nice.
Kind of. It helps that he's kind of buzzed. Beneath that, too, is a layer of golden, loose-limbed afterglow from his mushroom death adventure this morning. The one he hasn't actually checked in with Gwen about yet despite saying he would. Oops.
Wilde slides nonchalantly into place beside her, smiling a greeting through another sip of wine. It's like he's been here the whole time, see?
"'Sup. Witnessed anything super awkward yet?"
----
Gwen knows better than to be overt about pointing out he’s been gone and obviously had time to grab a drink before letting her know he is okay. So instead, she slants him a look, pointedly sips her own wine, before she says, “Super awkward? Nah, nothing on that scale. Everyone is behaving like a bunch of Ribbonfins.” She doesn’t even smile with that, although there’s a glint of amusement in her eyes. “But you never know. Could be a powder keg in here. One bitch-slap over an old fight and..” She makes a sound like a small explosion, her hand gesturing to give it some oomph.
“Anyway, you look good.” She turns so she can lean one hip against the outdoor table she’d been haunting (this had been a good spot for people watching), and act nonchalant. “Like things are going well for you. I would have liked to know about that.” She glances at her watch. “About, I don’t know…..ten hours ago?” There’s no heat in the expression, the raised eyebrow, just indulgent resignation. She’d known full well he’d say something when he was ready.
----
"Booo," Wilde intones.
His smile never falters, despite the very true nature of what she's saying. He definitely could have at least scribbled I'm okay on a journal page, indulgent resignation or no. Still -- "What can I say? Time melted and I became the earth. You know how it is."
Kidding. He leans against the same table, eyes on the milling crowd as if there may, in fact, be an incoming powder keg explosion.
"Anyway, thanks. I feel good." Wilde glances at Gwen, thinking over his words. "It's hard to describe. But, as you can see--" a gesture to his ensemble, which is passingly adult for once, "--totally fine. In one piece. No more than the usual amount of festering trauma."
--
“Your usual amount is bad enough.” She's smiling as she says it, because it is relieving to know everything went as planned. Or, barring that, good enough. “And you do look good. In that.” Her gesture encompasses his chosen attire as well. “Thank God I know what your face looks like, or I would have been thrown completely off.”
Satisfied that he's aware she worried and she got to chide him for it, Gwen crosses her arms, dangling the glass from one hand haphazardly. “Fun question to ask at our reunion,” she starts, “but did you find what you were looking for? Ignore the existential nature of that whole sentence, though. I haven't been drinking enough yet to get that far.” She grins, but she's genuinely curious; it's there in her eyes, with a bit of unsure speculation. She hasn't gone to Ribbonfin, or beyond, yet. Hell, they both know it's the first time she's set foot on the campus since they’d graduated. Sometimes they talked about it, long rambling conversations under a blanket of stars so numerous it might as well have been daytime. Other times, they just went camping and never let a word of it cross their lips. “Becoming the earth sounds good, but been there, done that.” A joke, not having any darkness after so many years. She doesn't remember what had happened to her body, after all. She only knows what she was told.
-------
Wilde does laugh at this -- the kind of laugh that is half at what she's saying, half at how it makes him feel -- but okay, maybe now the smile flickers. Just for a moment.
"I think so," he tells her, after a moment's consideration. "I couldn't tell you what I wanted to find, but I guess I found it."
At dawn, through a blur, he'd managed to see the trees as beautiful. The forest had felt like any other forest, not good and not evil, fully alive and cyclically dying at the same time.
"Honestly, I kind of just sat in the dirt for a while. I wrote an incredibly weird letter to myself and--" He pauses, momentarily lowering his voice into a self-deprecating whisper. "--Teared up at how beautiful the sun was. Maybe. For a second. Like, in a totally stoic and cinematic way. Then I went to the Pitch because Ebonhide people were there, but I was designated Too High to Fly, so I just... lay in the grass like a fucking weirdo."
It had been a nice morning. And not unlike similar adventures in the past.
He tips more wine into his mouth. "Wait, did you go out? Whack some bushes?"
---
Gwen nods along, her lips pursed in a considering expression that is almost undone by the crinkles at the corners of her eyes at his whisper. She doesn't quite smile but it's clear that she wants to. It's the look that goes with the whisper, the ease that hasn't been there before, not completely, and she's glad to see it. Worth the ten hours of worrying. Not that she had to worry. His brothers had him.
“Nah, no bushwhacking. No one else seemed up for it.” She half-shrugs, swirling the wine in her glass. “All the senior Fin girls are married now, and I think there's enough kids between the four of them to generate a ton of excuses. Ennis says we should, though.” Most of that time was spent with Avery, but still not talking about the past. Never talking about that. “So, you fucking weirdo,” she says instead, smiling again, “did you talk to your boys, in the safe space? Is there enough beer to make this a safe space?” Other than in passing, she hasn’t spoken to the Ebonboys, so she has to assume they didn't know she sanctioned the mushroom trip without snitching to them.
----
"Gross," says Wilde, off-handedly. "Why does everyone have to go and grow up lately? God."
He wrinkles his nose, but the truth is his friends are all equally "settled." Totally lucky and happy. Their kids are cute and loud and rambunctious and fun for short stretches of time. He's glad for the beauty wrought by their adulting skills. And he's fine with his own weird little life, too, chilling with Gwen here on the sidelines. Unless that's just the last of the mushrooms sparkling away in the back of his skull. Hard to tell.
He shakes his head, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "Nah. I might bring it up later when we're less surrounded by boring adults. I think it was totally obvious I was on something earlier, though."
"Also," he adds after a moment, "you should. Go, I mean. If you want. I'll come with you, minus psychedelic drugs. Orrr..." He makes a teasing face of intrigue, as he's mostly asking in jest. "Plus?"
----
“Shut up.” Because it does make her laugh, the mock disdain for their crazy happy friends with their adult lives. Like him, she doesn’t begrudge any of them what they’ve created. Sometimes, she even wonders what it’s like, but it never seems to fit the way she lives, the way they live, even though she now has a big rambling house and enough space and she certainly has enough time and money. But this fits better. Being able to indulge other people’s kids, commiserate with her old friends about problems she doesn’t have but can give fresh sympathy or perspective about. She doesn’t feel any rush to change that.
“I think it was probably obvious. On the other hand….you were preempted by drunk animals on brooms,” she points out, after a moment. “Maybe you’d have to be a lot more fucked up to rate on that scale.” She’d checked out the animagus race. That was not something she could pass up. “But the boys notice those things.”
Playing along, she makes a show of considering it. “Grown from baby seeds or something like that? I don’t think I can alter my brain for anything less than full organic Wilde-cultivated crazy pills.” They both know she’s got that streak of being straight-laced that she’ll never quite shake. She’s not unfamiliar with the mushrooms, but it tended to be rare for her. “I’ll go. Sometime. Probably.” She doesn’t know if it will be easier or harder to have him come along, she realizes. And that’s why he had to go to the trail on his own. “Still, I bit it over near the Grotto, and we’re too old for that now. We try and go over there, it could be a crapshoot if we get close or not.” An excuse. She hadn’t been that close when she died, barely past the Ribbonfin camp. Taking a liberal sip of her wine, she adds, “But…..yea. I probably should.”
------
"Maybe I'll get that fucked up tonight. Liven things up around here."
He gestures toward their old schoolmates with his now half empty glass. They do get more entertaining the more he drinks.
"Baby spores," he corrects, still joking. "See? I'm an educated professional that you can trust."
I bit it over near the Grotto. Wilde's eyes soften a bit despite the tone, and he nods. He knows his ease with this shit probably betrays a deeper unease. He supposes if it were as simple and straightforward as he makes it out to be, they all would've come out here a long time ago to reclaim these sites. He would've. But every time it had come into his mind over the years, it had never seemed like the right thing to do just yet.
"You could always come back another time," he tells her, though it's an obvious thing to say. "If it's too weird. Much."
------
“Oh, no, you aren’t abandoning me to go off and get messed up,” she protests, still amused even as she cuffs his shoulder. “You got one night to do that, but if I’m left to my own devices tonight? I’ll tell the cops for certain. Or your mom.” She knows he’ll end up with the Ebonboys anyway, which is fine. Despite the freedom they’d craved and finally attained as adults, they didn’t get together as often as they wanted, none of them. The irony of adulthood. In another day, she’d be headed back to Connecticut, after making a bunch of promises to do this more often. As long as there is a babysitter.
“You’re an educated twat, that’s what you are.” It’s easier, talking to him about this. Always has been. Maybe she should try harder, with Avery. Except stressing out a pregnant woman has to be a poor idea.
She opens her mouth to say something else, something equally offhand as her prior comment, but what comes out is, “It will always be weird. I could be a hundred and walk out on that path and I’ll be eighteen again and afraid because I know what’s happening.” She blinks at her own answer, and takes a fortifying drink of the wine. A long drink. She should stop talking. It’s a beautiful evening and people are laughing and having a good time. And she’s thinking again about looking up at trees through fog and crying because she wants her mom and she doesn’t want to die.
“Maybe some drugs, yea,” she adds, hoarsely, before blowing out her breath in a shaky sigh. “This whole place is fucked, Wilde. I’m glad we got out. If we really got out.”
------
"Snitches get sad eyes." Wilde flashes them at her over the rim of his cup. A leftover joke from somewhere, sometime or another. Maybe an early hike or a layover in an airport. He doesn't remember, but that's probably why he still threatens her with them.
He cuffs her right back, mouthing a 'boom.' "I got my degree. And maybe you should find better company before people think you're one too."
Then Wilde's turning away just slightly, distracted by a couple passing by and someone's loud exclamation from across the fire, but what Gwen says next brings him right back. He gapes at her for a small second, face darkening with concern, before she blows out that shaky breath. Then he smiles, trying to look reassuring despite the fluttery, nervous feeling in his stomach. If we got out.
And the thought of what those last moments must have been like. Maybe that's the difference between them: he still doesn't remember anything but waking up at the Oak. Never has.
"Hey," Wilde starts, softly. Then he shakes his head at himself. "I know."
All the obvious platitudes sound and feel trite and useless no matter who they're from, even ten years later. So he just reaches out to touch her on the arm, rubbing his thumb in a little circle before letting the hand fall back to his side.
"If this is a fucked up dream, I gotta say I'm really disappointed with some of the world-building."
-------
And she's still a sucker for the limpid look, softening already from her claim to rat him out, a reality he remembers even if the joke goes back into obscurity. Gwen makes a face. “Yea, put those away,” she teases. “Dangerous.”
She's not cowed by the suggestion, brushing off the return attack before they resort to an entirely childish slap fight. Which is more likely than it really should be. “Metal charmers don't need degrees,” she says, loftily, “unlike other educated twats.” Sometimes, she feels like it should have some equivalent, considering she’d spent the same amount of time cloistered away with a grumpy professor, but she wouldn't trade her time with Kallestad for anything. A true bastard but also a genius.
And the lakeside is loud and raucous with merriment and Gwen feels her words casting a small cloud over just them. She immediately regrets it; he is happy, enjoying himself and frankly, so is she. When she doesn't think about the trail, she's glad to see her senior girls, and Ennis and Yancey and everyone who'd been basically family for those years. She feels his eyes on her and she can't meet his gaze for a long minute, not until she feels the warmth of fingers against her arm, and then she can, she can look. Because he knows. Even though it hadn't been exactly the same, he still knows.
It doesn't banish the sharp pinch in her throat, like a fishhook caught there, but it helps.
“Wait a minute, my world-building is excellent,” she says, instead of thinking again about the path to the Grotto. So much closer than it's been in years. “I gave everyone what they wanted. Look at all those smiling faces.” She gestures with her glass, realizing at the same time that it's empty now. “That's some serious wish fulfillment right there. I should be proud.” She manages a smile, on more solid ground. But she'd have to face the path and she knew it now. They both did. “Should I have given you another degree? You're not happy with what you got?”
-----
Wilde can only smile when she does look at him, a warm, kind of dopey little thing that says I see you there.
Then he pulls a long sip of wine, because as chill as he's managed to be this trip, he does know exactly how she feels. There's always still the ghost of it. Plus, Gwen's glass is empty now and he definitely needs to catch up before whatever comes next. This conversation is going to be in the back of his head for the rest of the night.
"Uh, I could do without the global warming metaplot," he objects. "Or centipedes. Or so, so many things."
Wilde drains his cup. "I may be happy, but I could have been happier, Gwen. If this were really about wish fulfillment I could've gotten like three concurrent degrees and been a Quidditch star."
He taps the edge of his glass against hers to point out the mutual emptiness. It's too bad he can't think of a good way to joke along those lines without sounding bitter. Life is, actually, pretty okay. Despite the details.
-----
There’s a curl of warmth there, in her stomach, as he smiles, or maybe it’s the wine, she doesn’t know. But it’s warmth and that’s what matters, she thinks.
“I couldn’t make you too happy. You wouldn’t accept that reality. Haven’t you ever seen The Matrix? Our minds don’t accept perfection.” She pulls out her wand, feeling the same need to keep easing through this evening with alcoholic assistance. “If so, I would have gotten more dates.” There’s a thought at the back of her mind, that she hasn’t yet seen her ex, and how that’s going to happen. Shaking off that thought, a tap and each glass refills itself; she’d been happy to master this years before. “Also, this is hands down the best part of being a wizard.” To be fair, her mentor always had shitty taste in wine for some reason. Or his conjuring was poor.
“Is that what would make you happy? I mean, I’m not much good for a do-over. Clearly the lesson here is ‘put someone with more imagination in charge’.” She doesn’t take another drink yet, just swirls it there, more contemplative, even though her tone is teasing.
-----
"I could absolutely accept it if it meant automatic tenure. My mind would be like, 'You know what? Sure.'"
Wilde always enjoys this conjuring trick. He only gets it right 4 out of 5 times, but Gwen is a very steady pourer. And yes, he's already taking a sip despite her noticeable pause.
"Honestly? Who knows. I might just be wired this way. Maybe it wouldn't even matter if everything were perfect, because I'd have no idea." He takes a second sip, pretending to be a sommelier. "More imaginative dream architecture would be wasted on me. The ground-breakers are all at work for them."
He gestures vaguely at their classmates, eyes smiling still. Wilde is nowhere near as sullen as he could often be when he was younger, though he does have his moments.
"Also, dating is the fucking worst," he adds, as he always feels he must when it comes up.
------
“Yea, but how would you balance being a Quidditch star? You’d never get anything done.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Or you’d be doing everything and we’d never have time for Alaska. See, this is obviously my subconscious at work. I kept you from having too many degrees and Quidditch groupies so you’d have time to go camping with me a couple times a year.” She takes a sip of the wine, feeling a bit more fuzzy now. Better. “I’m so selfish,” she murmurs, into the glass.
His indication of all their happy classmates isn’t lost on her, and she feels the same affection towards the other former students. She and Wilde are separate right then, on the outskirts, but she likes that they don’t feel truly outside of it, even just observing. “If I can make anyone happy, there are worst choices,” she says, softly, watching them all talk and embrace. Soon enough, they’d rejoin the throng. Whenever.
Combing her hair back from her face, she unexpectedly laughs when he calls dating the worst. “Bullshit.” There’s a wry smile there, even though she’d looking at the crowd again. “I know you. You don’t mind it at all when you’re into it. Closet romantic.” She glances over, but ends up turning back to face him more directly. “That’s not a bad thing so you’d better not give me those sad eyes again.”
------
"This is a perfect world we're talking about, so that's not my problem," Wilde says, tapping his temple. "There would always be time for Alaska. And groupies. And baby spores."
She says something into her glass that he doesn't quite catch, but her voice is soft for the next something, which he does.
"Yeah," he says, in agreement. Dumb kids, all grown up. Age is making him too sentimental. Shouldn't he be totally hating this experience right now? All his coworkers had made sympathetic noises when he mentioned coming here.
"Wow." Wilde laughs brightly at Gwen's call out, then shakes his head at her. "That might be true -- note that I am not actually agreeing that it is -- but the lows are so low, my dude. I have bad taste and I know it."
It's true. He got really lucky once, and then never fully again, but that is definitely a subject for sad eyes. Even if he's had some fun along the way.
"I'll spare you," Wilde promises, though he furrows his brow in the tiniest hint of inner 'pain.' "But not because you deserve it."
-----
“There’s time now for Alaska and baby spores, but no groupies. I like my wilderness unspoiled by baggage.” She slants a look that is mildly censorious of these imaginary groupies. Not that they hadn’t invited others along on their forays, rare as it was for anyone to actually take them up on it. She doesn’t know why; their trips are only barely hazardous.
“How do I deserve that, just because you have bad taste?” She almost wants him to make the face again. It’s endearing and it makes her laugh every time, even when she rolls her eyes. She needs the laugh, to go with the languid warmth from the wine because she feels the lingering subject they aren’t talking about. Impossible to really outrun around here, anyway. “And it doesn’t change you being a closet romantic. Look at you, all soft over these babies out there.”
Now she’s turned on him, idly poking him with a finger of accusation, grinning. She has to hold her wineglass out of the way, lest they run into a party foul. “You’re wasting all your affection on Sid. Wait, that sounded wrong,” she adds, holding up her hand in mock truce. “Sid deserves all of the affection, ever. But so do you.” She blinks at her own words, and then looks askance at her wineglass. “Wow, did we hit that glass already? So soon.”
-----
"Wow," Wilde repeats. "You're camping with the wrong person if you don't like baggage."
Mostly a joke. "In this version of reality, all my groupies are intrusive thoughts." Another tap to the temple, and he drains a last swallow of wine from his glass -- except he almost spits it out at the sudden poke of her finger, which he fends off with his free hand like a pro fencer.
"Oh my god, not you too." All soft over these babies out there. Wilde composes himself, running fingers through his hair, though there's a new little rush of color to his face. He'd retort that Sid deserves all the love in the world, but Gwen does it for him, so he just shrugs. "All my children are silent, well-behaved, and confined to a research greenhouse. You know what really kills the romance? Real kids."
This line of jest is one he uses to tease his friends all the time, mostly because it's so clearly untrue in their cases.
"Okay, so do your trick again," Wilde commands, holding out his empty glass. "Then you definitely won't deserve sad eyes."
-----
“Our baggage doesn’t count.” A double standard she has no problem espousing. Some of their trips happened solely because of that baggage, after all. Forests had been hard, at first. “At least I only have to carry half of it.”
Her teasing has the desired effect, and Gwen smiles with vindication. “You spoil that hedgehog as if he were your only baby. Tas is getting ancient, too, but I’m not that bad.” A glint comes into her eyes. “It’s really a shame. I saw something on the Anon post about how fantastic your genes are. A whole bunch of people were on board. You’re depriving someone of smart plant-babies.”
She wonders if she can get the color to intensify. Always a fun exercise.
“Mine’s not empty.” She pointedly takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim of the glass. He has sad eyes, but she has innocent ones.
-----
Wilde hates and loves that glint.
"I have always been this way and no one ever gave me shit about it before," he points out.
The mention of the anon post makes him snort. He's not even actually super embarrassed about that conversation, despite not knowing how to respond. Weirdly flattered, maybe.
Still: "Dude. Who even?" He makes a little face, because it was very obvious who even. All his friends. "But honestly? Maybe I'll get in touch. Then I technically did my genetic duty and everyone can leave me alone forever about settling down."
It's not that it bothers him, exactly. Maybe it bothers him that he can't seem to get a handle on things other people seem to find so straightforward. Then again, there are things he can do that they can't. Or maybe, actually, none of this really matters that much to him when he’s not surrounded by the young families of his peers.
Wilde is still holding his glass like he's expecting a refill. "I can wait," he informs her. "Or maybe I'll just go find something harder."
-----
“I have always given you shit about it.” Not true. If there is anyone who spoils Sid more than he does, it’s her. But as far as she’s concerned, being a hedgehog is the only criteria needed to be adorable.
“I could make some bets. There was a lot about genetic engineering on that post, and that narrows the field. I’d watch where you put down that glass.” The one he is still offering out and that she’s still ignoring, just to see how long he’ll last before pulling the sad eyes. Or the threats. Both are entertaining.
“No one will leave you alone about it, you know. And stop, with that face.” She says it like she doesn’t really want him to stop. She puts her wand on top of the glass, mostly because she knows she’s about to say something more serious and he’ll want the wine. “It’s too early to go hard. Save that for the after-after party.” Glass refilled, she clinks her own glass against his.
“They’re happy, that’s all.” The others milling about. A few say hello in passing but are swept along with the crowd. “And they want you to be happy, so they offer up all the things that have made them that way. Kids are a big one. A significant other, too.” She’s going to say something else, but instead she shrugs. “It’s okay that we didn’t do the same, you know. Stick with our high school sweethearts and such.” Not a way it had been phrased before, but she feels the same pressure from everyone else. All four of the others in her cabin had married a school boyfriend. Well, someone has to break the pattern, she supposes.
-----
Wilde looks amused. "Addy sounds like Addy over any medium."
Now he will never stop with this face, he decides, except that he breaks into a satisfied little smirk at the pour. Of course, he doesn't realize it's in prelude to more serious talk, which he should have expected. This conversation ebbs and flows.
Gwen offers up a theory that he's considered himself, so he agrees, voice just slightly distant, a beat after she's finished. "Right. I mean, of course it's okay. It's life."
His continued friendship with Saira says as much, though sometimes he still thinks of her and feels a phantom ache. The complexities of those feelings and regrets would take a whole night to explain, even though the few times he's seen her the last handful of years were all absolutely fine and calm and good. Thinking of them presently reminds him of Webster, and he considers asking Gwen if she's seen him yet, but... He finds he doesn't want to. Although, maybe that would be the nice friend thing to do? Sometimes he's not sure.
"I'm honestly going to need to be way more drunk to talk about this," he admits after a moment, teasing but honest. Then he has to laugh a little at himself. Dumb. "And I plan to be, kiddies be damned. I know my rights as cool uncle."
-----
She eyes the smirk, debating whether or not to get another jab in there, the same way she weighs if she wants one more bite of dessert; how much will she enjoy it, and so on. But she lets it go because she’s blunt, and she knows she has never mastered tact in all the years since. And because he puts up with it.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she offers, although usually when they say that, it’s almost a guarantee they will. Maybe they are both secretly masochists. “It’s the elephant in the room, though, isn’t it? Or the toddlers in the room. They are practically the same thing.” Because she thinks about it from time to time. And as she did point out once, she could have just done it on her own if she really wanted, had a child and been a single parent, because she has the resources. She works for herself, at home. Avery or Calvin or even Rosy would gladly add any child she had to their brood so she could still run off and camp or travel. But it felt….clinical to think of it that way.
“Seriously,” she says instead, and it’s easier to chuckle about it because they are on their way to being drunk, “we don’t need to.” But also because drinking can lead to bad decisions, she adds, “Are both our respective exes going to be here then?”
-----
"A little bit. And every time you look away from the elephant, it side-steps and shoves more little elephants in your face until you hold one for a while."
Wilde pauses, then shrugs his shoulders amiably at her question. "I seriously have no idea. I haven't talked to her in a while."
There's a micro-pause in there, which he treats like something natural and unconscious. As embarrassing as it is, Saira's name still has weight to him in a casual context. Even a handful of girlfriends and one brief fiancee later.
But Webster is totally easier to talk about. On second thought, Wilde can totally ask about Webster. He takes a neat swallow of wine, then smiles evenly at Gwen, friendly but with a tiny affectionate bite.
"Is yours?” he ventures, leaning in an little. “I haven’t seen him yet.”
-----
“They are cute elephants, though. Not too heavy.” There is no way she will say any less about her own favorites, like Calvin and Micah’s most amazing daughter. Really, Gwen can’t compete and that’s a good excuse as any.
She almost fills in that pause. She has, in the past. Always blunt. But here, on the grounds of their alma mater, where those relationships had been formed and flourished, it is as if the ghosts of romances past are hovering, picking apart any mention, and shoving it all full of outdated regrets. She doesn’t feel like she has the right to say Saira’s name. She’s not sure why.
“He’s here.” A pause, asking for explanation. “I mean, he said he would be here by now. I assume he’s here. Said he was looking forward to seeing me, so….seems like a reasonable expectation?” She means it to be devil-may-care, all you know how it goes but there are those ghosts again, pricking at her. Regrets, not so much about what’s lost but because it was her fault. Her single-minded devotion to her career.
“You’re taller than me,” she points out, to inject some sort of leavening to the heaviness in her stomach. It’s ridiculous because he’s maybe got a couple inches at most. “Maybe you could spot him for me, giraffe.”
-----
Wilde brings his free hand up to his eyes, pretending to scan the crowd for incoming musicians.
"Looking forward to seeing you," he repeats, casual. "Interesting. So if I see the guy, should I warn you or wave him over?"
It's a way of asking how she really feels without really asking. Not that it matters how she really feels about Webster. It's not unreasonable for him to be kind of curious for comparative purposes. Or other ones. It's a caring friend kind of thing to ask. He is totally not nosy whatsoever.
-----
“It's Webster. If there's anyone who can out-do me for niceness, it's him.” She's resigned, with a trace of affection for her old boyfriend. The kind that says she's aware someone is probably better than she deserves. “When he says things like that, he just means he’s looking forward to seeing me. I'm not sure subtext enters into it.” After they’d broken up, her explanation had been to Wilde that naturally, it didn't work out so well when one half of a duo is traveling all over and the other half is in flipping Norway.
“Tell you what. If Lilika is with him, at least give me a head’s up? I don't know how she has changed over the years but I'd like to have a protection charm up just in case.” She takes a long drink of her wine. “I'm the shitheel who broke her boy’s heart, you know. I think that's how it goes.” A thought occurs to her. “And make sure that I'm not talking to Casper at the same time or she might stab me in the back.” It’s mostly teasing, as she figures Lilika had left behind old grudges ten years ago. But one could never be too careful.
------
Wilde doesn't mean to find any of this amusing, but he can't help it.
"I got you," he promises, in 'grave' assurance at her request. "But there's only so much anyone can do if she starts mouthing off." Mimics couldn't stop Lilika's mouth. Neither can he. Plus, she's hilarious.
He does smile though, to underscore that he's here for Gwen. As unlikely, probably, as any kind of actual drama should be.
But now he's kind of curious, so he does gaze out across the area to see if he can spot either of the pair. It's hard to tell with the movement of the crowd, though, and in a weird way, when he isn't trying it's almost like he doesn't recognize anyone at all. But it still feels good, in here. The energy remains pleasant despite his increasing buzz, which is evolving kind of a dangerous flavor as the hours roll on.
"I think you're getting better every time," he tells Gwen after a moment playing look-out, indicating the glass in his hand. "Maybe void wine could be your side hustle."
-----
“Oh, jeez, you can laugh, I know it’s funny,” Gwen retorts, with a good-natured roll of her eyes. “What is more sad is that I really wanted her to like me. Damnit, she liked everyone else. She became friends with Casper, even, and we all know that takes persistence.” She says all of this with the long-suffering humor of knowing it was high school drama and there’s little to be done. “But she couldn’t stand me. I’m cool, right?” She flashes him a look that promises vengeance for any wrong answer. It’s an I know where you live glance. “Still, if we’re doing some knock-down drag-out wrestling, her cheering section is going to be bigger.”
Huffing a laugh as he held up his glass, she waves it away with a slightly unsteady gesture. Yes, they are getting nicely along on this trip to get messed up. “People in Norway drink strong stuff,” she offers. “The further along I get tonight, probably the closer it’s going to get to akvavit. Best part is you won’t even notice, because it will knock you on your ass. I’m a champ now.” She pauses, then says contemplatively, “I’m not entirely sure that seeing him will be better drunk or sober, but..” She looks down at her glass. “I’d say the decision has been made for me.”
-----
Wilde shrugs, mouth curling in a crooked grin. Old drama. He finds it cute -- recounting the story thoroughly, in that little tone like it's tired news. If asked about his episodes of drama in highschool, he'd have nothing but the latter. A lot of things that mattered a lot once have absolutely escaped his memory now, in terms of detail.
"So cool," he soothes, in the same voice he uses when Sid's prickles are starting to poke too sharp. Then he winks. "And a fight at your ten year reunion would only make you cooler."
The millionth mouthful of wine. "Hey, bring it, Popplestone. Fuck me up with your Aquafina.”
He furrows his brow, though, at the next mention of Webster. Maybe she is a bit more worried about it than she's letting on, even if the dude is ridiculously too fucking nice. Wilde has no idea what to do with that, though, so he acts like it's all totally cool.
"That's the spirit."
-----
“Don’t patronize me.” She’s still smiling as she says it, albeit kinda wobbly and making a halfway attempt to get her own prickles up. And failing. “A fight would make me cooler. But let’s be honest, she’d kick my ass.” There’s no trace of resentment or defeat there, just amused directness. “I’ve got less hair to pull now, so that’s a bonus. Girl fights need lots of hair pulling.” There’s a bit of color in her face now, because she likes the cooing reassurance that she’s probably not a huge dork. Which she is. Even conjuring up wine.
“Alright, hand over the glass, I got this.” Famous last words, maybe, but she’d done enough drinking over the last few years to keep a deft hand even when on her way to plastered. “There is a lot to do in Norway in the winter, but not that much. Drinking and screwing around are the big draws.” The liquid that fills his glass this time is a pale amber color, almost like champagne. “Tada...there’s your Aquafina.” She laughs, low. “Don’t drink it like water, though. And oh my god, we maybe should find a place to sit? I feel like leaning against this table is destined for failure at some point.” Almost an hour, at least four glasses. Tough guys that they are.
“Hey, you think you’re real different from back in school?” she ventures, apropos of nothing. It’s not entirely from nothing, although he doesn’t know that. But she is wondering what Webster would think of her now. Definitely, there’s more cursing. Interesting bonus, if she really thinks about it.
------
"I was being sarcastic," Wilde informs her, with a quirk of an eyebrow. Just to prod those prickles. "And Lilika has an unfair advantage because she's psychic or whatever, so the odds... don't count?" He gives up here, now that his brain is tangling over jokes about hair pulling like a fucking thirteen year old.
He lifts his hand to eye the unfamiliar liquor. A look of amusement is distorted through the glass. "What, are we not doing shots?"
The truth is, most of the time his tolerance is pretty okay. He can champion with the best of them. But that's when he's been treating himself properly, which he hasn't exactly managed since arriving. It's yet to become a regret, but he still has a whole night for that. And then a lifetime to forget about it if it does.
He laughs a little at Gwen, tickled, and nods at the cluster of seating around the bonfire. "Dude, are you going to fall over? Okay. C'mon."
Then she asks a good question out of nowhere.
When they've settled again, seated in chairs with the fire warming their faces, he considers pretending he doesn't remember it was asked. But he can't quite do that kind of thing with Gwen anymore. Can't really pull it off after ten years of texting and trips. Instead he takes his time to think, makes himself comfortable, and brings the akvavit to his lips. It's not exactly as he expects -- he does grimace just slightly at the flavor -- but it's something, all right. He feels a warmth roll down his throat and into his stomach, then reaches out for to cheers for the third time.
"Yes and no," he finally says. "I think I'm easier now. Like. With myself. On myself. If that makes any sense. But I don't know how much of that was actually growing up right or..." Wilde trails off. "You know."
“Or did you mean that in another way?” He wonders. “Because I just said some real shit.”
-----
“Look, just don’t show up to the fight with a Lilika poster, and we’re good,” she offers, eying him, humored. She knows what he’s doing, just to get a reaction. Most of the time it even works, sucker that she is, until he gives it away by laughing. Gwen suspects she’ll never really learn. On purpose.
“Oh, no, I made you say some real shit.” There is no apology in that tone, as she tries not to sprawl, given that it feels a bit better to be more supported than just the table was offering. She settles for tucking her foot under her other leg. “You can do it as a shot,” she adds, gesturing to the glass. “But just the one. I’m not going to get dinged for taking you out early on, before you’ve really gotten to enjoy the party.” She laughs, and puts her hand over her face in a vain attempt to stifle it. “Party pooper Popplestone. I’m done for.”
She likes his answer. You know. She does; the reason they’d bonded early on had been because finding someone else who understands that one particular experience is rare. Even as their friendship grew, it flavored things. Many times, Gwen found herself grateful for the first time he’d reached out, to the ‘Dead Kids Club’ as they called it, because it led to the last ten years of having someone who got her, and how she’d changed.
“Yea, well, I didn’t just mean that scruff you like to sometimes call a beard,” she jokes, after a moment. “I think we should just call it ‘baby spores’ because it’s about on the same level.” She expects the sad eyes, or another jab, grinning a little, before she says, “I do feel the same. I’m less….anxious about everything. Uptight. Everything used to make me crazy back then. It was Defcon 5 when I had an emotion.” She smiles ruefully, more to herself, as she takes a drink. “I like being more at ease.”
-----
"Oh no," Wilde drawls, in a monotone echo. He wrinkles his nose cutely at Gwen, leaning back into his chair, and takes a pointed sip of akvavit.
Then he shakes his head. "I'm not quite at the point where I'm taking shots by myself. But the night is young, so don't worry. You might get credit anyway."
"Also," he continues, raising his eyebrows in mock insult, "I'll have you know this scruff is an aesthetic choice."
Sometimes when he's in a bad or too-busy place he looks a bit more like a mountain man, and his students make fun of him on the wizarding equivalent of ratemyprofessor. So, honestly, what's a guy to do?
But Wilde softens a bit as Gwen continues, nodding. He knows that feeling, even if it'd expressed a bit differently in him. Where she’d bloomed with tension, he'd always locked himself down.
"I'm glad you figured things out," he tells her, sincere. "Defcon 5 is an exhausting place to live."
------
“Ten years later and I'm the wet blanket, thanks.” She extends her leg so she can poke him with her foot. It doesn't have much to it since she's just wearing sandals, the closest thing she likes to dressing up. It goes with a skirt, that's all that matters.
“An aesthetic choice? I bet those college girls tell you it’s scruffy-chic.” The suggestive look is slightly ruined by her snicker. “I like it when we’re on a long trip and you don't bother to shave, because it scares off the other yeti.” It’s still affectionate, lacking any bite. Familiar.
“It is. It was,” she corrects herself, softly, still with that small smile. “Everyone always telling me to relax. I always wanted things to be perfect, you know? Sorta built up those years like I had to make just the right memories, before it was all over.” She's looking away from him now, at the lakeside at large, eyes unfocused. “You only get one senior year and all that. I thought it would set the course for my life, maybe.” She rests her glass against her thigh. “I suppose in a way, it did.”
-----
"You could take a night off."
It does, in fact, take some slight effort to look as no effort as Wilde does most of the time. Or at least, that's what he tells himself.
He lets out a little breath that says everything on its own. "Undergrads." He tips his chin just slightly as if 'reminiscing', then laughs. "Oh my god. Uh, no, that's the surf punk. I thought we established that."
The angle for people-watching is still quite good, now that they've moved. He squints at a slight commotion taking place near a refreshment table, preoccupied with trying to recognize one of the participants, then contributes: "Everything matters and doesn't matter. But here we are."
Easy to say something like that now, hanging out, safe and happy, with a reasonable expectation of a continued upward course in life. Wilde takes a slightly larger drink of the liquor, feeling suddenly restless with himself.
------
“This whole night is my night off.” Gwen rests her elbow on the back of the seat so she can prop her temple against her fingers. Despite the fact that they often hang out and she sees him more often than any other classmates, the evening still feels different, in a nice way. Gooseberry holds some terrible memories for them. But it also holds a million great ones.
Her eyes flick over to him as he laughs. She likes it because he usually only rewards her with a tease back. “You're my own personal yeti, J. Accept it.”
But she's spent enough time with him to see when his mood flickers. “You want to be off, doing things?” she says, quiet. “You’ve got that look in your eye.”
-----
Wilde turns, readjusting slightly so that he's facing Gwen. "Good," he says, meaning it, through another taste of akvavit.
"I like this stuff, by the way. I feel like I could jump in a fjord or whatever."
There's a current of music playing under the chatter and boisterous noise of the party, and he bobs his head to it for a second, playful, before resting it against the back of the chair. "If I'm a yeti, what does that make you?"
Her answer to the next question is a considering silence, then another loose shrug. "I could make rounds soon, probably," he says. "But I'm cool."
Typical, Wilde's mood has already flickered right back -- though now that his head has something to rest against, there's a delicate hint of after-effect druggy sparkle in the back of his skull. Must still be working through it.
Whatever. There's no rush, though he is kind of wondering what's up with his friends. "I can't believe no one's started a Quidpong game. Maybe I will."
-----
“I think that's actually what some people do on akvavit. At least swim the fjords, ice floes and all.” She finishes her own wine, and then pauses as she pulls her wand. “Not my favorite, though. You remember what I like.” She has to concentrate, this time, but the resulting drink is a much darker color. A mead, one she's actually conjured for them before, when their chosen locale got too frigid and needed warming up. “You know, I'm not sure Kallestad counts this spell as one of the important things he ever taught me, but it really ranks high up there.”
Thankfully she's not taking a drink when he returns the jibe about the yeti. “I'm the girl who hangs out too much with yetis, clearly,” she laughs, her shoulders shaking a little with mirth. “I should really get into surf punk. That might help.”
The music is nice and Gwen realizes she's gotten a lot more relaxed as they chat, or probably because of how much they are drinking. But for now, she doesn't have to watch what she says or how she says it. There's still a lot on her mind, but it's retreated to a nice, safe distance. Until the boys come and collect him, at least. “I'm really glad you're here,” she offers, contemplative. “This would have sucked a lot more otherwise. I mean, I’m happy to see everyone, but it's a lot less stressful.” She sips her drink. “Or maybe that's the wine talking. Goddamn wine.” Smiling at him, she adds, “You could start some Quidpong, but I bet you right now a bunch of drunken animals will take over. Actual, drunken animals.”
--
"See? I got the vibe. So your void akvavit"--a tiny superior look here, when he manages to repeat after her properly-- "must be legit. Thanks, Kallestad."
Yeah. Wilde would absolutely jump in a fjord right now if one appeared right in front of them. Maybe it's warm enough for skinny-dipping this time of year, actually. He imagines jumping off the docks in his super decent outfit, but of course that entails remembering the docks, and suddenly the idea is no longer so whimsical.
But lo, a happy distraction. He takes one look at the mead and makes a pleased sound of recognition despite immediate complaint: "That stuff is too fucking sweet." Not that it stopped him from drinking it before. Or ever.
It's a testament to his still-sparkly circumstances when Wilde laughs, because it's solely at the way Gwen's merriment shapes her words. Her shoulders are shaking like he's actually succeeding at being clever, and that's always nice. So he has to agree: "It's been pretty okay."
The returning smile is genuine, if very slightly shy. Just at the edges. "... I mean, the wine does help. Don't badmouth our mutual friend."
He thinks about asking what else any of them have ever been but a drunken animal, but the grinning gaze stretches on just slightly too long instead, thanks mostly to the aforementioned mutual friend. So he just lifts his glass to his mouth instead and turns back to the crowd.
-----
She rewards him with a wink when he manages to repeat the word, inflection and all. It’s potent stuff, she knows, but there's a reason they drink it at holidays. Makes everything more fun. “It's sweet,” she concedes, with exactly zero regret in that admission, “but it make me drink it slower. This place is getting warm enough, with this many people.”
She sighs happily on the tail end of their laughter, glad again that this keeps her from dwelling on the locale. Like him, her smile lingers a bit long, but she doesn't realize it. It feels natural. “I'm not going to knock our favorite camping buddy,” she answers, toasting briefly with the glass of mead. “It's gotten us through some truly hairy situations.” Perhaps not gotten them through, but helped them retell it later.
That prompts her to ask, “Hey, what are we going to do tomorrow? After all the partying and such? Are we done, you think, head back?” She's strangely reluctant to think about that. Because she hasn't planned yet when she’ll go out to the trails. Tonight, except maybe it will be worse in the dark. Maybe it won't matter.
------
"I hadn't thought about it," Wilde admits. "I might hang out. Sleep this off. Go somewhere else for a day instead of heading back."
He has nomadic tendencies and no one expecting him anywhere until Tuesday. One never knows when there might be need for a vacation to get over the current vacation.
"We should figure out Alaska redux, though." It's probably what they'd talk about, if they headed back together. We. "I'm not gonna forget even if I drink like six of these."
He waggles his now empty glass.
-----
“Damn, you saw through my transparent attempt to take Alaska off the calendar.” She obligingly taps his glass for a refill, but it’s the mead instead of the akvavit this time. “I’m cutting you back.“ Too late, she realizes she lumped them together for the trip back, out of habit, like this is just another excursion, where they are killing time in an airport or waiting on a portkey.
“I’ll probably stop over and see Calvin and Micah, if they are free,” she says, musingly. “There’s no way I’ll get two seconds with them in this crowd. Especially considering how much Micah likes talking.” It hadn’t been her plan, but it feels safer to have something or else she’d wander all over the campus. “I sent an owl to Covington, see if he’d like to go for a ride for old times sake, too.” She still loved riding, even if she had nowhere to keep animals other than Tas on her small property.
“Alright, Alaska.” Making a show of getting comfortable, as if this is going to be a slog, she adopts a long-suffering expression. The amusement in her eyes ruins it. “September will be here before we know it. Denali will still have tourists then, though.” She brightens. “Katmai? Not enough moose, but I’ll live. Too hard for No-maj to reach, so it should be pretty empty.”
-----
"Covington must be like a thousand years old now," Wilde must remark. He takes the teeniest exploratory sip of the mead, which will take him a thousand years to drink, it's so sweet. "...Where do Calvin and Micah live again?"
He doesn't actually care. He's just being nice for you, Gwen. Because Alaska. Smirking, Wilde adopts a similar settled posture, though his looks a bit more triumphant.
"Katmai," he confirms. It sounds a bit like the sarcastic grunt he uses when trying to cheer for a Quidditch team and not look that into it, despite the fact that he completely is and has pennants up in his office and everything. All-Stars. "We're totally going to Brooks Camp. Cos there might not be moose, but there'll still be fuckin' bears in September."
More thoughtfully, he adds: "And that place with the lava flows or whatever. We have to go there too."
-----
“He’s not a thousand. It’s been one whole decade. Barely enough time for either of us to have learned how to drive.” She still doesn’t know. She hates cars mostly because they are so limited. Brooms for life. “Anyway, all the Jays live on this same little street, so that’s where Calvin is too, but mostly I see them in LA. That’s a lot of Jays for one person to be surrounded by.” She says it with a brief mock shudder. There’s a lot to be said for distance. She likes being able to retreat to her out of the way place.
“Oh, there are bears. Fat, slow bears, getting ready to bed down. Well, fat but still hungry bears.” She makes a crooked half-frown as she considers it. “Brooks Camp, fine, but I’m not sitting through any more bear-themed safety talks and certainly not any more bear videos. I’m bear-ed out. Do you see me making us watch salmon videos all the time?” She tips her glass up and takes a swallow. “I mean, I guess I get to see salmon when the bears are eating them, sure.”
She slants a sad look at him. Her mournful look is not as good as his but she does alright. “You owe me moose. What about the Colville River? And if we head over to the Aleutians, we will be the only ones, because they’ve got active flows right now.”
-----
He may not have been particularly interested to start with, but Wilde cackles out loud at the news of Jay Street. It's not an unkind laugh, considering. "Oh my god."
As for bears and fish --
"It's the circle of life," Wilde comments sagely, around a pecking of mead. "Take it up with your dream architect if you don't like it."
Her sad eyes would be easier to ignore if they belonged to someone else, and if he didn't have to look at them through such a pleasant veneer of ease and tipsiness. He pouts momentarily, playing along, then brightens. "Okay. I have a proposition."
Wilde leans forward to speak more closely, voice low as if conveying a secret mission. He's... completely amused with himself. "We can totally do the Colville River, if you'll settle for caribou instead of moose. And I'm going to take down a mark for every one I see, and that's how many days long Alaska redux redux will take in a couple years. What do you say?"
It's a great plan, clearly. With an afterthought: "And Aleutians, obviously. Definitely."
And an afterthought of an afterthought, murmured with amusement: "You know there are bears there too, right?"
------
“My dream architect would totally punish me with bears,” Gwen answers, her tone dry. “I rather wish in retrospect that I hadn’t taken Divination, because I don’t want to know what that says about me.” Truthfully, she likes the bear hunts they’ve gone on ever since finding a tiny, almost mythical population of brown bears in Ovre Pasvik National Park during her apprenticeship. But she didn’t like to let him off that easy.
She smiles as her own pouty look works, and leans closer conspiratorially, even though she senses a trap. Well, she is never good at avoiding those anyway. He knows her too well.
“Wait, first off, caribou aren’t the same as moose. I don’t make you count lilies when you are looking for roses,” she retorts, her knee bumping against his for emphasis. “But…” She draws out the word, consideringly. She already knows if he pulls his own sad look, she’s going to give in. “I do like caribou. So, for every one we get to see, that’s one day for Alaska redux redux.” She holds up a finger. “And for every bear that we see, that’s one day in….New Zealand.” She pauses. “We could do the Waitomo caves. And this has nothing at all to do with hobbits.” Or her weird thing about seeing the sets from movies. Not at all. She smiles winningly, holding out her glass so they can toast to the agreement. “But, if we’re there, we could see the whole village. Just saying.”
-----
"Hmm." Wilde raises an eyebrow. If he were slightly more sober he'd ask about bears and symbolism, but -- as totally fine and incredibly sober and clever as he is, it's too much effort. He muddles anyway: "Legitimate. But one bear is enough punishment, and I metaphorically count. So according to rules that I'm totally making up as I go, your balance is settled."
He bumps right back, though his knee is bruised from a boarding fall last week. Some things never change.
"That's why I said if you'd settle," he chides, playful. "And deal. Hobbiton, it's on."
Wilde makes a show of tapping his glass against hers. The movement has faux gravitas.
"Hey, Gwen?" He gives her a serious, considering look, as if weighing a choice in his mind. Then he bends in closer, further lessening the distance between them, and whispers
"Nerd" before leaning back away again, gazing innocently out at the party again.
-----
“I’m counting you as one bear towards my total days,” Gwen promises, gleefully. “I could be a shit and count each day I see you as another one, but that’s just cheating.” And she’s too honest, a real drawback right at that moment. “I like when you make up rules that benefit me.” Unrepentant, that smile.
As soon as he caves, she makes a small, excited sound in her throat, wriggling in place in her chair. She loves when she can drag him to some random movie-trivia locale, especially if she can trick him into not expecting it. However, there is never an easy way to trick someone into New Zealand. She manages to school her features enough to close the deal with the sound of the glasses meeting, but her eyes are still dancing as she looks at him, pleased as punch.
Still, she wrinkles her brow at his sudden serious look, and finds herself leaning over as well, wondering what he’s going to say. Perhaps the alcohol is lowering a few long-standing barriers, but she’s drawn in easily, and strains to hear his whisper.
“Oh, my God,” she splutters, caught between outrage and laughter. “You prick. Just for that, we’re taking a side quest to Angkor Thom so I can pretend to be Lara Croft, and you have to be my dumb sidekick.”
-------
"Ooh, one day," Wilde teases, a brat. "You really got me there."
And then he's very serious, of course, but can't even pretend for that long. Her response to his stupid joke is very satisfying. Maybe this is part of why they get along the way they do.
"We already cheers-ed," he informs her triumphantly, enunciating. "It's too late to add new terms, tomb raider."
Wilde leans comfortably back against his chair with a deliberate air of self-satisfaction. Obviously Angkor Thom sounds rad, and he'd absolutely carry her gear for a mile or two if she really wanted. Make some stupid, self-aware comments. Curse over a sudden snake appearance and beg her to come look. He's done all of these things before and he's not ashamed of them.
-----
“I only need one day as a Hobbit.” She reconsiders. “That’s not true. I need more days. Hobbits are cool and I'm cool. You said so.” The alcohol is getting to the reasoning stage, right on time.
“Hey, that's Miss Croft to you, sir.” She's still got that mock glare for his nerd comment but she's going to enjoy this. “I'm a respected archeologist, in booty shorts. I don't care about exposing vulnerable parts of my body in a dangerous jungle. That's how kick-ass I am.” She's already warming to the idea, even though they've clearly got the next two trips already locked down. Playing the heroine on a cool hike, when she knows he'll play along, tickles her thoroughly. No matter what ideas she comes up with, he always improves them.
Laughing, she adds, “I love all the stuff we do.”
-----
Wilde makes a who knows sort of gesture, wetting his lips with mead. "Are they, though? I want you to search your truest heart right now and get back to me. I can't be an authority here." He nods at his glass, still very full. "It's just not responsible, Gwen."
He does enjoy a good pseudo-mean look. Like, historically. Theoretically. Hers might need slight practice to be truly almost cutting -- the kind where you're not totally sure if it's actually in jest -- but it's passable. Cute. Really cute. "Toss in an early 2000s soundtrack and I'm in. Minus booty shorts. The test audience hated them."
I love all the stuff we do. Wilde can’t help but grin. It’s slightly softer than he realizes. There's a hint of a nod, too, which may or may not just be for the music again.
"Well, I just like it," he jokes, which is absolutely untrue. "But I think Alaska redux will bump you up a couple of stars. I have a good feeling."
-----
“Hobbits are cool.” She almost whispers it, fiercely, to herself, a little reassurance. Yes, she is a terrible nerd. “I mean, not as cool as the Riders of Rohan, but still.” She has a not-very-well hidden thing for Eowyn, but she doesn’t share that in polite company.
She’s unaware that her look comes across like something an adorably disgruntled hedgehog might manage. “No one really likes those shorts,” she agrees. “Especially since she wears thick hiking socks with boots anyway.” As far as she would ever get into critiquing fashion; if a fictional character wore it, and her critique never made sense.
Her expression says she wants to act offended, but they are too at ease now, too relaxed with the mead, so she says, instead, “I know the way to your heart, Wilde. It’s bears. If I take you somewhere with bears, I’m automatically great again.” She holds out her glass. “To Alaska. The state obviously salvaging my reputation.”
-----
"Death?" Wilde asks, in a quiet voice.
He wrinkles his nose just slightly in mock agreement, though he finds he can't actually picture what they're trying to talk about anymore. What's wrong with hiking boots? Socks? He needs a glass of water, honestly, but Gwen's mead stays with him seemingly no matter how much of it he swallows. This is how nights like this always start. He knows he's ready for anything now.
Wilde's in the midst of another drink when Gwen toasts, so he lowers it and taps his glass against hers a final time.
"To Alaska redux and redux redux," he agrees, then drains the cup entirely. The pull is impressive, but it's so sweet he coughs afterward, ruining the effect.
"Okay," he says, final, "I gotta go do the rounds before I stop making sense. Thanks for playing conjurer."
-----
To anyone else, it would be an odd comment, out of context and sobering. But Gwen smiles, a small, pleased smile, almost into her glass. “Death,” she repeats, since they both know the meaning of this little reference.
The sound of their glasses breaks the reverie, which is good, because she’s been drinking enough to really get to the movie quotations part of this evening, and he has been subjected to enough of that in the past. “Wow, I’m impressed,” she comments to his downing of the mead, in a tone that says she is totally not. Her smirk gives way to a shrug and a more casual smile.
“Be off with you then,” she intones, with a wave of her free hand. “Remember, though, don’t leave your glass lying around or else your DNA will get swiped.”
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