mp | not an inch more room to self-destruct [barbie]

12:27 am

Throbbing pain. Stars behind his eyes. Killian didn't look back. He could hear the last wisps of whatever conversation those two were having as he walked away – How could you? came Phillip's voice, and he was of half a mind to turn back around and start yelling again. He stopped himself, biting down so hard on his lip he began to bleed.

The trudge back up to the Maidstone house felt so much longer, so much more arduous, than the wander down and away had been. Has his feet felt this leaden? Had this collar been so suffocating? He pulled at it, stretching out the cotton as he walked.

The party had been warm when he left, the lights inviting. It was all so harsh now, the noise pounding at his temples, the sweat pooling on his lower back, the lights blinding his eyes. He lifted his arm as a shield as he got closer, squinting against it. It wasn't even that bright, or that loud – the most chaotic parts of the party seemed to be winding down.

Fuck, Mavis was spending the night at Billie's, wasn't she? Killian was possessed with a need to find her, to warn her about what just happened, what Phillip had done –

what he had done

– and you know what, never mind, talking to Mavis seemed like a really bad idea right now. Or, uh, talking to anyone. Ever again, maybe! Christ, he needed water. Killian licked his lips, coiling at the taste of iron where his lip was bleeding. Water. Right. He hopped onto the back porch, hoping to see through the window that the kitchen was empty. Was hoping the porch was empty, too.

No such luck. Killian's gut twisted as he looked at Billie's closest friend. He gave her a weak smile. This might be his last chance to have a nice conversation with Barbara, after all that. He shouldn't waste it.

There was something in the air. He tried to grin, managing about a half smile. "You've seen Jari lately?"


@Barbara Gibson

Barbara had had a glass of wine. She had gone back into the house, had demanded one from the very cheerful Slytherin girl hanging out in the kitchen, who had thought her hilarious and poured her a generous serving. She had drunk it down in a few gulps, before she could get cold feet. She had not liked it very much – she thought it must have been very cheap – and she had immediately needed to get a glass of juice to follow it, which the Slytherin girl had found even more hilarious, and said something about Chasers, which Barbara – not being much of a Quidditch fan – had not caught at all. She had not liked the juice either – it had only compounded the tartness of the wine – so she had dumped it out and gotten a glass of water instead.

Then, she had come out to the porch and sat down. She didn’t know where Billie had gone. She didn’t know where Aase had gone. She had been just desperate enough that she would have been happy with Magnolia’s or Mavis’s company, but she hadn’t been able to find them either. She imagined that they had all been running around the house like gnomes in their tunnels, just missing each other, only because the alternative was that everybody else was somewhere without her and she couldn’t stand to think that. It was paranoid anyway. Why had she come?

She reached up, like in a daze, and untied her hair ribbon; her hair fell around her shoulders, feeling oddly damp, smelling a little smoky. Those damn boys and their drugs, she thought crossly, and a little bit hysterically. It was useless to fluff it; she was sure the ribbon had left a sharp crease where her ponytail had been, and she looked as stupid as she felt.

The porch creaked, and she looked around; she hadn’t seen Killian coming over, hadn’t even heard him. He smiled at her – You’ve seen Jari? – and she smiled bitterly down at her lap – “I thought he was dying,” she confessed. “How’re you?”

Barbara thought he was dying. Killian grinned wider, chuckling a little bit. "Seemed like a close thing when I saw him," he said with a slight air of conspiratorial glee. "Ascending to another plane of existence. Divination prof would be proud of him, I reckon." She had a glass of water in hand -- Killian was deeply envious of her just for that, never mind that she would have an intact friendship with Billie when the night was out.

How're you? asked Barbara, like a normal person who hadn't just royally mucked up a very important friendship. "Good," Killian said automatically, not realizing it was a lie until the syllable had fully exited his mouth. The enchanting weightlessness of what Jari had given him was wearing off, and taking with it delusions of hydration. "Parched, actually," he corrected, scratching at the nape of his neck with slight embarrassment. "Was just going to get --" he pointed at the kitchen through the window with a small shrug, "-- water. You know. The wet one."

Perhaps he was still a little high, after all. He tried to regroup. "How are you doing?" That should have been his first question, not asking about Jari. "Haven't seen you much since, uh, games." Another embarrassment, that was –– in the dark, hopefully Barbara couldn't see his cheeks darken.

“Oh, don’t talk about Divination,” said Barbara plaintively, “I’m so ashamed.” But this was as much as she could bear to go on; Killian looked highly amused by the whole thing, but Barbara was just mortified; would that she could sink, rock-like, into the dirt and be swallowed by the earth, right now. Well – she’d have to go through the porch first. That would be noisy, probably. Maybe if she stepped of the porch she could sink into the earth, but just now she felt very light and small and insubstantial and not particularly like she could sink, rock-like, into anything.

Killian was parched. Ignoring his general incoherency, Barbara held out her glass of water – “You can have some if you don’t want to go in,” she said, “Don’t worry, I’ve already had dragon pox.” She set it back down next to her, as a wordless invitation, and settled her chin down on her hands, tilting her head up at Killian so that her cheek pressed flat against her hand. They were facing away from the house, away from the light; she couldn’t make out his expression, and was too exhausted (exhausted? what time was it?) to try to decipher his tone.

How are you doing?

“I had a little wine,” she confessed – it had seemed like so little in the glass, but then it had felt like so much as she drank it, so she wasn’t entirely sure whether it had been a little wine or not. Any amount of wine, of course, felt like a grievous misstep, like a horrid corruption. She felt horrible.

“But I’m all right,” she reassured Killian. He hadn’t seen her since the games – she sighed and rolled her head back upright, so that her chin pointed hard into her wrist again, so that she stared straight over the endlessly dark field into the trees. She hadn’t participated in the first game, and she had fled the second.  She said, “Killian, do you think I’m a coward?”

Barbie looked rather like she was ready to combust at the thought of Divination -- Killian mimed zipping his lips, locking them, then chucking the key away. He wasn't sure how much of that got across, so he added on, "Forget I mentioned it," in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone of voice.

She'd already had dragon pox. "Hah," said Killian, far too buzzed to recall whether that was a real magic disease of concern or not. Still, he took the water from her gratefully, because he did not want to go inside. It was warm inside, and cool outside, and loud inside, and less loud out here where it was just him and Barbie. 

Barbie? Drinking? Killian supposed that would have seemed unthinkable for him too, just earlier that night, yet he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. She was alright, she said, and she sure seemed more put together than Killian was at the moment. He went for a sip of water.

Killian, do you think I'm a coward?

Killian nearly choked on his water. "Jesus Christ," he said. Of all the sort of wistful, dramatic, Wuthering Heights-esque things Killian could reasonably expect to fall from Barbara's mouth, that wasn't it. "Jesus Christ," he said again, before taking a big swig of water. His mouth felt dry. "The hell you asking that for?"

There was water on his chin -- Killian wiped it off with the back of his hand. "I don't think you're a coward," he said, perhaps too late. "I think you're, uh, whatsit. Pragmatistic. Practical. Pragmatic." He nodded, confident he landed on the right word and pronounciation. "This is -- what, is this about truth or dare, like?"

Killian was acting very odd – he drew two fingers across his lips and then twisted, as though to mime tearing them off. A nice sentiment – undoubtedly morbid – it must be a Muggle thing. He was, she thought miserably, so nice, so decent, so normal. Rather unlike every other boy she knew, in that. She drew in a breath, so deep that she felt she would break down as soon as she let it out, and managed instead to just sigh.

He seemed to doubt her claim to dragon pox, but he took the water anyway, and then sputtered on it – Jesus Christ! She pushed herself upright to look at him, frowning with mingled worry and confusion. “What?” she said, unsure whether to be offended by that reaction – did Killian not think about this? He must – he was a Gryffindor – unless it was a pillar of Gryffindor Sorting to not worry about things like that.

It wouldn’t surprise her a bit – by now she knew that she wasn’t one. Usually it didn’t bother her, but tonight, so uneasy with her own daring, with the wine in her stomach, with her high ponytail, she wished badly for the easy confidence everybody seemed to have. Or at least the ability to fake it.

“I don’t know,” she said, now sorry she’d asked, but still wanting his answer. “Just – do you?”

Killian told her she wasn’t a coward, of course, because he was nice and decent and normal, but of course he couldn’t argue that she was brave, so his assurances fell rather short. Pragmatic, practical – plain, prim, prudent – ugh. “I suppose it is,” she said, and gestured with one hand as though to indicate the entire house, the entire party – “Or all of it, I suppose – I just haven’t had any fun tonight.”

She remembered, belatedly, that his best friends had planned it. “I’m sure it was fun for other people,” she added fairly, but not cheerfully. “I mean – you’re having a good night, aren’t you?”