trans_9 | A Soul As Sweet as Blood-Red Jam [Closed]

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A Soul As Sweet as Blood-Red Jam [Closed]

Howard doesn't like to share. Anyone who's known him long enough, and by long enough that would mean twenty minutes, would piece that together.

So while delivering some homemade jam to a friend might be, in the hands of others, a neighborly gesture, for Howard it's a lot more important than that. It's practically sacrificial. The jar in his backpack feels heavy, and each thump of it against his spine feels like a reminder of how many calories the stupid thing is. Howard picks up his pace and wishes he brought his bike.

Finally, he gets to the Cedric's room, and shuffles foot to foot in the time-honored Dance of Awkwardness while he waits for Cedric to answer his knocking.

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Howard's come at an interesting time. Cedric had been taking a mid-afternoon nap, exhausted as he was by the physical training he'd been pushing himself through. What a day it's turning out to be.

He rolls out of bed, extending an arm toward any old shirt lying around. Once that's on, he opens the door without fixing his hair (the horror!). Whoever's knocking sounds insistent.

The moment he sees Howard, he flashes an awkward smile and hides himself on one side of the doorway. "Oh. Hey! I didn't think you'd be here so soon."

Cedric's a little dazed, not even remembering that his hair isn't his only embarrassing problem. There's some incriminating evidence lying right on his bed: a stuffed bear with a little blue bow, innocent and cuddly.

[OOC: there's a survivalist thread with your name on it too. :D]

"Well, it's not like there's really such a thing as 'early' on Stacy- is this what I think it is?" Howard sets his bag down and brushes past Ced to snatch the stuffed animal off the bed. "Are you serious?"

Howard grins and dances the little bear across the bed, managing to make every motion of his play totally mocking.

Cedric spins to look at what Howard's locked onto and promptly sputters. Hell. He completely forgot about it! He usually transfigures it into another shape as he leaves the room.

Now there's a plausible excuse.

"It's...uh, a disguise! Definitely a disguise. I don't want that found, so I transfigure it into a harmless bear."

"A disguise for what? You smuggling drugs in this thing?" Why yes, that is exactly where Howard's mind goes. He turns the bear over and looks for a zipper.

"No, of course not," Cedric rolls his eyes. "I don't really use them, I'll make potions if I need anything. And you won't find a zipper," he adds, guessing what Howard's looking for.

With a smug little expression, he pokes his wand out. "The disguise is a transfiguration. And I won't change it back, it's even more embarrassing."

"Wait, you can make potion drugs?" Howard flops back on Cedric's unmade bed, claiming the space with catlike disregard for it being Cedric's property. "Oh, come on. If I snap a picture of this and stick it on the comms, can you tell me what it is?"

"They're like drugs, yes. Used for healing, and...other purposes by wizards with a grudge." Cedric shifts back and takes a spot propped against the wall, mostly unconcerned.

"i don't see a camera."

"You don't have any that make you see pink elephants?"

Howard winks and waves his omnicomm in the air. "I know omnicomms better than you. I know all technology better than you."

"I can't say I have, no, but we could turn an elephant pink if we wanted to."

He does something similar to the bear in Howard's hand, giving it a new green shade. Howard's serious about this, isn't he?

"...you really want to know what it is?" Cedric bites his lip and looks down, playing this up.

Howard startles at the bear's color change, but doesn't drop it.

"Yes. Yes I do. And I will find out whether or not you tell me now." He's expecting something anticlimactic now, but eh.

"All right, you win," Cedric sighs, twisting the wand in his hand with a defeated expression. It has to be something that would truly be embarrassing, without being so mortifying as to make this pointless. It's a difficult line to walk.

With a wave of his wand, the bear morphs into a small book. Cedric's name is on the front cover.

A journal. Could Cedric get any more foolish and sentimental?

Howard snatches it off the bed and sits down, pretending to read it. He has a delighted, victorious grin on.

"You know, I got one of these. But you're not allowed to read it. Hang on, I'm looking for mentions of me."

"And you're allowed to read mine? How is that fair?"

Cedric knows he could use a spell to seal it at any time, or scramble the words, but he thinks better of it. This might just be an opportunity.

There are several entries about Howard, in fact! Just after the one about his longing for his family is a recounting of their first meeting---he's not exactly a ray of sunshine, is he? This war really is serious if he's like that. Will that be me?

Another entry talks about the awful modeling competition. Everyone here is so...catty and mean. Have they forgotten that we'll succeed as long as one of us wins? Tyrant's a bully, I don't think I can stand to be around her much longer.

When he returns to the ship, he discusses Howard again. Kaya told me he's a good guy. I don't know where she got that impression---I suppose he's okay? Not as aloof as he might behave sometimes, but it's hard to see him being close to people. Zouichi and his parrot, maybe. And the cats. Just how do the parrot and cats get along in there, anyway?

Another entry talks about his paralyzing fear during the robot attacks. I'm scared, so scared. Howard's helping, he knows what to do. I'm not a survivor like them. I'm learning, but I don't think I'll be ready to make it when t he worst happens.

There's a recounting of his test for the Magical department, some stories from the Quidditch field, and the two most recent entries---they appear rushed together, written in blotchy ink that isn't quite as readable as the rest.

He's gone. I knew he was going to, and I hope they have a safe journey, but Kaya was right after all. I'm really going to miss him. I'm not as comfortable with anyone else. And yet he's a Slytherin type, we both agreed on that. Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendships are so rare for a reason, we're clashing types. And somehow we made it fit.

Sushi and ~~Emergency Rations~~ Spot aren't happy. I tried to find them toys on the planet---I have a really bright one that lights up and has sticky string! It's cute when it gets tangled around their little paws. But they don't tug, they just bat at it and wander back to the door, meowing.

I wish I could tell them that their owner isn't coming back. And that that wasn't true.
---
Howard's back. But I'm not happy like I thought I would be.

Those awful, horrible, terrible, putrid-smelling, cowardly, foul Daligig got them. They tried to torture them. It's so astoundingly cruel that I couldn't just do nothing. Just seeing them there with their smug faces made me forget everything about the odds. I charged. I tried to make a plan to break them loose and hide. Throw them out, pound them like they deserved for daring to harm the innocent. There was no crime, only unrelenting tyranny.

It was far too ambitious for a sixth year wizard. They broke me, and. I've never felt worse. Thank goodness Stacy saved them, kind, wonderful Stacy, because I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't---what we would have done. I haven't seen him yet, but I have a feeling it's going to be bad.

I'm sorry, Howard. I'm so sorry. If I can ever figure it out, I'll get you out of here myself.
---

Cedric fiddles with his fingers. He's not sure if Howard's reading, and if so, how much. But he'd better keep it quiet. He can be trusted to do that, right?

Howard pulls a pen out of his pocket and scratches out 'Spot', replacing it once again with 'Emergency Rations'. His face has taken on a bit of a thoughtful cast as he totally snoops about Cedric's private thoughts. Honestly, he's not surprised that Ced didn't like him off the start, that's what he presumed. He's more surprised by how sad the last two entries are.

He pretends to just skip right over those pages.

"Well? Has the war beaten the ray of sunshine out of you yet?"

~~He'll know you read it when he sees it's edited, Howard.~~

Cedric has to think about that for a moment. It's saddening to him---that was never even a question before. But now...

"No," he says finally, softly. "We're not gone yet. We still have friends, we have a home, we have each other. The odds are against us, we don't know if we'll ever find peace, but...as I see it, our options are to find peace or die trying. And I'm not giving up without a fight."

~~He only edited the important part!~~

"It's better here than it was back home, for me," Howard considers. "But I'd rather not die trying."

After a bit of an awkward pause, he adds, "I'd rather you not die either."

It's a sad thing to think about, but...they both need to survive. This can't be how they die, it just can't.

"Maybe we won't. There'll be something better, you'll see. At the end of the rainbow---or a light at the end of the tunnel, anyway."

"The light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Obviously." Howard closes the diary and sets it to the side. "And did you honestly use 'at the end of the rainbow' while trying to motivational speaker at me?"

"Yeah!" Cedric isn't deterred at all. He smiles, walking over to snatch the diary back. "They're beautiful wonders of nature. We'll never reach the end, but we can appreciate them if we ever see one again. And we will."

"Oh my God, gag me with a spoon. You're practically dripping sugar right now." He rolls his eyes at Cedric. "Rainbows are light refracting through water droplets. Also they show up on oil slicks. Food for thought." He taps his temple.

"I don't understand most of that, but it doesn't mean it can't be pleasant to look at," he insisted stubbornly.

"Don't you ever stop and look at things?"

"No, not really. I mean, I look at things, just not in that way." He looks at them for context and for advantages and for threats, but for pure beauty? Not really. "That stuff seems really...sappy, I guess."

You take the fun out of life, Howard.

"It might be, but it's also nice. It's relaxing and appreciating what you have."

That said, he takes his diary back and shifts it back into the bear form. Cedric takes care to prop it up on the pillow. "So...that's what I'm doing. Appreciating."

He tries so hard.

"You don't think it's like tempting fate or anything? Like putting a bullseye on the things you like and daring the world to take it away?" He pulls the pillow off Cedric's bed and puts it in his lap, hugging it a bit. The bear-diary falls off.

Cedric pulls his bear into his lap, giving away the ruse. That's okay. He needs the comfort now.

"It could be. But if I let fear keep me from enjoying what I really want to...what kind of life am I leading? It might be safer, but I wouldn't be living to my fullest."

"I thought you of all people would know better than that, Ced." Howard's voice take a bit of a harsh tone. "People who say living in fear is worse than not living at all haven't had to make that choice. I make it every day."

"That's not what I said," Cedric shakes his head sadly, "or at least not what I meant to say. You can live in fear and still live, still have meaningful relationships. Appreciating things doesn't always have to be open and obvious, does it? I wouldn't be able to live without relationships."

"So there's nothing wrong with living in fear," Howard says, taking Cedric's argument, turning it on its head, and coming to totally the wrong conclusion. "And I'm tired of hearing that there's something wrong with me for living that way."

He breathes deep out his nose and hugs the pillow tighter. "I wish I could live without relationships. It'd be easier." But he can't and he knows it.

"I'm sorry if I told you you're wrong," Cedric whispers, staring at a spot on the wall. He's not wrong. It's perfectly natural, given what he's been through. In some ways, Cedric's resilience is the freaky part.

Cedric just wishes it didn't have to be this way.

"Maybe you wouldn't be accountable to anyone. You could do anything. But...I'd miss hugs, and hearing stories, and games, and figuring things out. Even arguments---at least then I know I'm not alone, that someone out there cares enough to talk."

"Yeah, that's why I can't just cut my losses and become a hermit. Which is a shame, because come on, don't you think I'd be an amazing hermit?" He buries his face in the pillow for the moment, covering up for the fact that this train of conversation has, in fact, upset him.

Cedric sees that pillow and catches it---not that he understands the full extent of what's going on, but Howard's upset by something. He needs a comfort.

With that thought, Cedric picks up a toy and waves it, trying to quietly call the cats. "You have your loyal animal companions and the knowledge to live on the streets. It's true! But I think you're...fine as you are."

Horror of horrors, he almost said 'cute'.

"You really think so?" Howard says that in the most disparaging tone he can think of. "I mean, we've met, right? Hi, Cedric Diggory, my name is Howard Bassem and I am not a nice person."

"I can't entirely agree," Cedric says, that innocent little smile playing across his face. "You're...prickly around the edges. But you're here, aren't you? Mocking my teddy bear?"

It's a gesture of friendship, Cedric's sure.

"That doesn't make me nice. It doesn't mean I even want to be nice." He releases his hold on the pillow and gives Cedric a skeptical look. "And I'd mock anyone's teddy bear, not just yours."

"But you do it because...oh, never mind," Cedric sighs, looking at Howard fondly. "You're more than you realise."

He's going to stay self-satisfied about that for a little while.

"I'm exactly what I realize. No more and no less. And I'm okay with that. I don't need a pep talk." What's Cedric getting at, anyway?

"So I won't say it. But I'll think it," Cedric teases, hugging the bear on his lap. "You can't stop me."

"If you're fine with being wrong, sure." Howard gets off the bed and pulls the jam from the backpack. "Here. It's mostly strawberry. Goes good with toast, probably."

"I know I'm not."

Cedric closes his fingers around the jar of jam, a grateful smile appearing on his face. And here's more proof, but he won't say that. It'll just have to be Cedric's little secret.

"It's been a while since I've had toast. Thank you." He tries not to lay on the sincere gratitude too much. Part of him is conscious that he's likely creeping Howard out.

"Shut up." Howard looks a bit peeved now, mostly because, as he says exactly what Cedric's thinking, "you're totally creeping me out right now and I don't like it."

Cedric knows it, but that doesn't keep it from stinging. He tucks the jar away on a shelf and turns away, clutching the bear. As requested, he shuts up.

The only sound that comes from him is a sigh. He'll have to be more careful next time. No recklessness, no fighting...

"Look..." Howard presses his lips together, trying to figure out how to say anything worthwhile now. The damage is done. He doesn't know why he keeps shoving Cedric away when it's true, he does like Cedric as a friend, except that it's harder to ignore his feelings for Cedric when they're close.

"Sorry. Enjoy the jam." He starts to get his things together and prepares to leave.

Cedric nods softly. It's all he has the strength to manage at the moment.

"I will. See you."

Maybe someday it'll be different.

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A Soul As Sweet as Blood-Red Jam [Closed]

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