[smgb] just another perfect night [john]

december 2001

Everything about the gala had gone exactly according to plan, save for just one thing: her date. The man she had been seeing with some frequency had passed -- and was an older muggle man she didn’t had never wanted her colleagues to be aware about -- and she had somehow made it to the day before the gala without finding a suitable replacement. She, along with a few other Head Healers, were placing finishing touches on the decorations. Of course, she would correct anyone who tried to take credit for any aspect of the grand ball that she had taken care of, but that wasn’t the most important thing about the final decor day. @John Lennox had made audible the complaint she was dealing with in silence, that he was also planning to attend solo.

Of course, Varya wanted to protect the image of St. Mungo’s, which included ensuring no Head Healer showed up to the gala as an embarrassment. It took just as much effort to convince him to accompany her as her date as she had assumed: none at all.

Still, it was the least date date she had ever been on. Varya had arrived early to the hotel, not to size up her date as she usually would, but to put some very last minute touches on the tables, nudging forks into place or turning a centerpiece feather just a hair. They had both needed to play the part of happy host, along with the other Head Healers, and didn’t actually spend any time together until they had sat down for dinner. It was the usual first date small talk, discussing work and finding similarities -- but they had attended Dilys Derwent at different times and she didn’t want to expound upon the differences between Hogwarts and Durmstrang yet again. That left talking about their personal lives, and as ever, Varya was not too forthcoming. Thankfully or not, John did plenty of talking for the both of them.

But because it was still vaguely work-related, she wasn’t about to ditch him, no matter how bored she was. They would still have to work together, after all, and she hadn’t found any real reason to get rid of him permanently. Yet. And date date or not, Varya had put extra effort into her hair, makeup, and dress, almost as if she were trying to impress someone. She was perfectly aware how good she looked with all the gold in the room and she didn’t want it all her hard work to go to waste.

Varya finished another glass of vodka -- it wasn’t too often that she let alcohol help her relax to this point, but she was determined to have a good evening. And fortunately, every sip made him a bit more tolerable and interesting. Every bit helped. Dinner had been cleared and the jazz had transitioned into dance music, waltzes for now, before the more contemporary musics that had been saved for later in the evening.

“So, John,” she started, her English picking up her accent the more she drank. “Do you dance?”

John had never been one for fancy work balls. In fact, that had been some part of why he'd chosen the line of work he chose. Being a healer, especially for his department, he rarely got out of the office for things like this. That was, at least, until he had accepted the position of head healer on his department. From that day on his days were more filled with paperwork and less filled with patients. He got some perks to the job, better pay and more vacation time, among others, but the bureaucratic nonsense was enough to tire out any man's bones. He didn't think it was a big deal when he announced that he'd be going stag to the St. Mungo's Ball, as he was between flings and most of them weren't appropriate for a work setting regardless, most of his ex-girlfriends being not quite twenty years old.

John wasn't an idiot, though. When Varvara from potions and poisoning had asked him to accompany her, he was certain to say yes. At first, he thought this might be a real date. She was gorgeous and while she was a bit older than his usual type, he found her near-irresistible. So she liked him, huh? Wasn't he a lucky one! He dressed nicely for the event, wearing a suit and tie. He arrived early too to help with the final decorations and admire his date from afar. She was looking absolutely stunning in a long white dress, and he told her so at dinner, the first time they really had to sit down.

They made some general small talk, which was rather boring, but John found a way to fill the lulls in conversation, taking mostly about his travels and some of the local venues he'd been to recently. There was a new art gallery that opened in London not long ago, and John had taken a girl there to look around. He had seen some interesting modern art he was keen to talk about. There was an article in the prophet about a building that got vandalized with political art, the third in three months, though there was no sign of the perpetrator. He had the pleasure of seeing one of the pieces in person before it was scrubbed away, and it was a bit heavy-handed but rather good commentary about the Ministry.

He tried to keep away from getting too political, too personal, but after a few glasses of whiskey he found himself talking about his ex-wife and daughter, and he knew then that the date was probably not going nearly as well as he had thought it might go. He didn't get too much into their divorce, though, thankfully, and he hadn't mentioned any of his mistresses or girlfriends, and he thought that was a win.

Then, she was asking him to dance. He smiled charmingly at her and offered his hand. “Of course, milady.” He motioned towards the dance floor. “Shall we?”

She had strategically finished her latest glass of vodka before posing her question and thankfully, he answered her in the affirmative. This wasn’t the first divorced man she had spent an evening with -- if anything, she was used to men with more than a couple ex-wives. Those sorts were more fun, harder to surprise, more of a challenge. Plus, one divorce suggested that a man had something wrong with him. But multiples suggested that he at least had something intriguing to offer to make up for the bad.

John had only confirmed her theory more, and she was relieved to follow him to the dancefloor, her hand placed lightly in his. A change of scenery, a change of activity, perhaps that could stir up the change in conversation that they sorely needed. Failing that, she could always count of vodka to make him more interesting. Once again she had to compliment her event planning skills; she would have to look into making a vodka fountain a permanent fixture in her life.

She couldn’t leave early, couldn’t fallback on her usual release of frustration with men -- it wouldn’t be fun at all to casually poison someone in a room full of healers.

As Varya pulled John closer to her, she had to at least credit herself with picking someone nice to look at. And his choice of cologne wasn’t horrible, now that it was an obvious feature. She flipped her hair over her shoulder before replacing her hand in John’s. “Have you visited Russia?” He had mentioned traveling but hadn’t mentioned that he had been to the best place. “I’d love to show you around.” She didn’t clarify the city, didn’t stop to consider that they were very likely never going to be in the country at the same time, but it was an honest attempt to not quit the evening too early.

John danced fairly well for a man who didn't do it all that much, as he moved with his date. Even with the light buzz in the back of his head from the Irish whiskey, he still had his wits about him. When she mentioned Russia, he grinned. He had never been but always wanted to go. Of course, he never did have a beautiful lady to go with, and Varvara was offering to show him around. He liked that, and his body language said so.

“I never have, actually.” He admitted. Russia was a bit cold for his usual traveling climate. He liked to go places warm and rich in culture. While Russia was certainly the latter—no one would dare argue it was the former. “I think I'd like that. We should make a date of it.” He pushed lightly. He didn't know if this was a real date or just friends having a good time, but John was the guy with his eyes on the prize, and in this case, that was spending more time with this beautiful woman. She was interesting to him, too, smart and a bit dark. He had always been strangely attracted to the darkness, though he rarely saw it in anyone.

When the song ended, he lingered on the dance floor, and began moving to the next song, something a little more up-tempo. He wasn't hip, really, or trendy, but he could dance like a man from the movies, probably because he had watched so many movies and tried to replicate the men in them. Some of his best moves were straight out of Dirty Dancing. He wasn't tired yet, and hoped that Varvara would allow him to remain close. She smelled nice and looked gorgeous, and he wasn't looking at anyone else in the room for once.

“Never?” Russia was such a big country and so thus so hard to avoid that one had to make a conscious decision to not visit, but Varya hid her displeasure. She surely wasn’t going to give him any reason to abandon the date this evening. But he picked up on her invitation to show him around, and she offered him a smile. “A date,” she agree, lifting her eyebrow just the slightest bit. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea, after all. Maybe he wasn’t such a bore once he wasn’t around his coworkers? One way to find out, she supposed.

Varya tilted her head slightly. “I am sure I could find plenty of things you would like,” she offered, hinting towards things not commonly found in a tourism brochure, things like Varya when she wasn’t around coworkers -- the slightest hint of a lowered guard. She was getting ahead of herself. “Of course, going any time soon would mean quite some time inside in front of the fire…” she trailed off with a hint of a smirk. She had no intention to leave the country with him anytime soon, but the vodka was helping her make promises loosely based on fact. After all, it was far easier than getting into some sort of long winded explanation of all the features of Russia -- honestly, what else could one need?

Plus, accidents on holiday were so tragic and rarely investigated to any fruition.

She had plenty of reasons to prefer the magical community to the muggle one, but wizardkind’s fondness for dancing was near the top. Galas were still a regular thing, not just some sort of special event every once in awhile as they were becoming in the rest of the world. People still knew how to dance, and John was no exception. The song shifted but he didn’t miss a step, and even though it wasn’t particularly the type of dancing she overly admired, she was starting to warm up to the idea of staying close to him.

“Have you had dance lessons or are you just blessed with a natural rhythm?” She hated saying ‘rhythm’, had never been able to pronounce it without sounding obviously foreign, but it was still far better than telling him ‘I like your moves and I would love to see more’.