[nice] sunshine is like lovers; some summers just pretend { montse }

Montserrat found it strange to hear Prosper apologize or deprecate himself; it wasn’t as if he had never said it before, but from her perspective when she had felt at fault for most of the night for assuming that something was wrong with him, it felt like an undeserved apology. “You weren’t being an asshole, I made an assumption, I’m sorry for that,” she replied gently, her voice edging cautiously to make sure that this time she paid closer attention and didn’t offend him.

They had a past, but it was presumptuous of her to assume that it mattered anymore, the two of them had moved on and she felt occasionally attached to her past. Montserrat could almost remember the entire exchange they had had that night when they had met up almost two years ago when she had asked that they might try being friends. She should have known then that everyone didn’t move at her pace, and that she was wrong for expecting as much.

But she felt much calmer now that he was speaking to her, felt as there was some cosmic balance that was being restored as they fell into a more comfortable pattern of conversation. They had been friends, first, and while Montserrat desperately tried to hang on to whatever few threads of commonality that they had left, things felt different. Montserrat smiled a little at his words, he was just as charming as he had always been, and that could eventually pose a problem. However, those were little troubles she would not express to him. “I’ve missed you too!” she said, turning to look at him, “I’ve been so busy at work and with everything else, I just wish I had more time,” she lamented. Montserrat was avoiding all that quiet conversation on purpose.

“I am happy,” she replied, even if that hadn’t really been the question he had asked. There was no question this time. “Is it?” she asked, her tone even and calm as she observed him as best as she could for signs. There was something there, maybe she just needed to learn how to approach it better. “At the risk of sounding terribly old, I will say that life does get more complicated but by the time it does, you’re capable of handling it. What’s on your mind…exactly?”

Prosper shook his head, smiling; she was always happy to take the blame for everything. Such a pushover. It was mostly endearing – sweet, even – but perhaps a little frustrating when he was trying to make up for something he’d done. But, oh well. If she didn’t feel like he was being an asshole, then wasn’t that what mattered? He let it go.

He glanced at her when she asked is it? wondering if she was asking if his life in particular was more complicated these days. He’d almost said as much. Prosper smiled a bit at her words; she always had been such an optimist. Maybe that was why she liked someone like Jeremy, he thought. Straightforward, she’d said. Prosper could be straightforward, but he supposed it was more of a rare state for him. Though, his life had been a lot more predictable lately.

The pair walked up some cobbled steps slowly, and Prosper looked away from her, drinking in the ambience around them instead. Colourful doors, narrow paths, ornate little decorations at the edges of everything… It was truly a beautiful place to be. There was no traffic on the roads; Prosper led them lazily across the square towards the beach, crossing the larger road without even looking.

“A lot of things, I suppose,” Prosper answered as the sound of gentle waves came into earshot. “It’s probably just the alcohol... Or the nostalgia,” He gave her a small, self-deprecating smile before looking away. Now that he’d acknowledged it though – prefaced it all with the excuse of drunkenness, he felt like he could spill his thoughts more freely. “Some things change so quickly, others not at all...” he started. It sounded dramatic, but the words were pretty, too. Prosper tended to romanticise his problems as such. “I feel restless, I think. Caught between these two states, unsure looking forward.”

The most dangerous thing about Prosper, the witch decided, was that he spoke in half-thoughts. An air of mystery lingered in his half-phrases and more often than not, Montserrat found herself filling in the blanks on her own and delving deep into those thoughts and feelings she had sworn off ages ago. Maybe it was all of that creativity inside of him that rubbed off on her in a magical sort of way whenever they occupied the same space or maybe it was the fact that when she spoke to him he made her think of an alternative universe where things might have worked out between them and they would have been walking the cobbled streets like lovers rather than former friends.

On her own, Montserrat only occasionally gave into the nostalgia and was just as often able to wave away that cloud of enchantment that lingered over her whenever she put her mind to it. In Prosper’s presence, things weren’t as easy.

“How very French of you,” she teased gently, the backdrop of seaside city ideal for the romantics’ words. “Hm,” the sound barely escaped her lips as she walked along the street, her eyes focused on the horizon as the wind blew gently through her hair—it all felt more meaningful here so maybe it was the nostalgia after all. But if that was the case, France as a whole was better left unvisited.

“I think you’ve always been restless, might’ve been the thing that I liked about you most, always moving even if the direction wasn’t always forward, there’s something to be said about that, isn’t there?” she said after a small pause, realizing that by using the past tense of liked she alluded that her feelings about her revolved around the romantic when that wasn’t necessarily true. They had been friends, first, but maybe must less closer than she had originally thought. Her pace slowed just a little before she looked in his direction, “Do you think I’ve changed?”

He resisted the urge to smirk at that – it was very French of him. Prosper was vaguely aware that the pair of them could have been speaking in English right now (surely they both spoke more English than French these days anyway) but liked that she hadn’t made the switch. They’d always spoken in French – he’d even known some Spanish back then, too. More than his pitiful English when he and Ari had gotten together, anyway.

“Everyone changes,” he answered quietly, though his words were clearly more facetious or diplomatic than a literal answer to her specific question. Reluctantly, he slowed too. He didn’t want to turn back or leave yet, though, so he kept walking, staying a little ahead of her, silently encouraging her to stay with him. He felt confident that she would; that was the flipside of her being so accommodating.

“I think there’s a lot about you that’s the same,” he answered fondly, glancing her way with a half-smile. She was backlit by distant streetlights; he could still make her expression, but the edges of her silhouette were brighter. He could hear the ocean somewhere behind him. "Kind and beautiful as ever, of course," he said, holding up his hands for a moment as if conceding something. “We’re both more grown up than when we were together.” A pause. “Well, mostly me. I did have more growing up to do, after all.” He glanced out towards the water, though it wasn't quite in sight yet.

Despite any posturing to the contrary, Prosper consistently fell into the trap of imagining his current self as his completed self; he tended to focus on the present, feeling that everything that had already happened had happened in arcs leading towards this point. The result was that everything current had an almost romantic sense of importance. It paired well with other traits of his, like spontaneity, hot-headedness, brashness.

“Do I seem it?” he wondered out loud, his thoughts wandering and distant before he glanced at her again, speaking more directly. “How have I changed?”

Montserrat momentarily allowed his words to permeate the air, penetrate her thoughts, and linger, only to remind herself that whatever charm he had peppered his words with were not directed towards her in particular, but at her. He had always been exceptionally good with his mouth; connected words in a way that filled the room with music that functioned at whatever tempo he chose, he could commander just about anybody’s attention, especially her own, and no matter how hard she tried to avoid the sway that he had so effortlessly imprinted into her heart, Montserrat found it difficult to escape from the sphere of influence that he cast upon her every time they spoke. It was an easier thing to withstand when Montserrat listened to it often, it was the sort of thing one needed to build immunity to not fall prey to.

But it had been some time since they had last spoken privately and ages since he had infused her with the sense of juvenile self-importance that she was experiencing at that very moment. It was in complete juxtaposition to her current relationship, where she felt the need to preserve Jeremy’s childlike innocent, uncomplicated, satisfying, full of positive returns. With Prosper, things were different, there was unbridled energy, a complexity that encouraged her to delve deeper, come out of herself, to live. And it suddenly felt like a little too much for her to handle alone but of course, there was no choice but to press onward. At least there was no physical contact, she decided, that was a risk she was unwilling to take. 
 
She smiled just enough for the dimples in her cheeks to show, “Oh now you’re just being charming,” she said lightly, taking in the words felt good, but only because a compliment from Prosper was enjoyed twofold. “You were grow-up back then too, you know,” she explained, she had always believed that he was mature for his age, but maybe that only reflected on her own flaws. “But I suppose I’ve changed a little too, don’t enjoy the same things I use to, am more conscientious of my free time, the people I spent time with, things like that,” she explained, gesturing at these things in the air as if it meant something. Montserrat knew that she did not have to spell it out for him to understand, and that was the beauty about someone that understood sentimentality so well.

Montserrat was not sure how to answer the question without sounding like she was lamenting too much about the past, which she was but it had no connection to her current relationship. In her mind, they were talking about separate realities, the fact that he had been in her life and he was not now, not to the same capacity. Those thoughts were not a measure of her happiness, they were simply observations. “Why don’t we sit down?” she offered, pointing towards the beach, even in November it wasn’t so cold that one couldn’t enjoy the ocean’s breeze. It would give her time to think.

Prosper wondered if he’d have thought about her much again if not for the time she’d asked to meet him in a bar. They had a lot in common; common friends, common interests. He glanced at her again as she smiled. Common tendencies to be insufferable romantics, he thought, with nothing but affection in the tone of his thoughts. He smiled back.

The fact that she’d confessed her feelings the way she had back then, though, had sung to his predisposition towards imagination. Towards story arcs and climaxes and the thrill and danger that came hand in hand with wondering. He was happy with Ari, and especially caught up in his new love back then – there wasn’t any risk of anything happening back then, and there wasn’t right now either – but the tug of a romantic plot was quite compelling to Prosper. Unrequited love, a missed opportunity, the fact that they still had all kinds of chemistry… On paper, he couldn’t help but appreciate it all.

He liked to think that it wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t contacted him back then, and that she would have meant something to him forever regardless (something sentimental that he often thought, when he was physically with the people he was thinking about, before they faded from the forefront of his thoughts when apart). It wasn’t of any relevance, though. Things had happened the way they had, and now everything was exactly as it was. It sounded simple, but sometimes people needed to be reminded, he thought.

“I think I’d enjoy some of the things from my past more if I engaged with them more,” Prosper mused thoughtfully. “Like tonight,” he added, glancing at her. He was still in contact with a lot of his school friends, but he had new circles now, and Ariane overlapped more with some than others. “I haven’t seen half of those people for quite a while,” he added, realising his wording and clarifying in case she thought he was talking about them.

“I’d like that,” Prosper said. It was darker out here, away from the lamps that lit the streets of Nice. He felt relieved and vindicated that she wanted to stay a little longer, and his headache had become a dull ache from the nape of his neck to somewhere behind his eyes, so the dark was nice. The pair made their way closer to the water, and Prosper admired the quiet and the sound of the sea. They slowed, apparently having found somewhere to sit. "Oh, hang on," he said, softly, drawing his wand. He conjured a thick, white beach blanket with some handy wandwork. It was a little chilly, so he applied a very mild warming spell to it too. "There we go," he said. Prosper took a seat and set about untying the laces of his oxford boots.

While Montserrat had never intended to disassociate herself from the past, she found herself unwittingly detaching from all of those past comforts in search of independence. At least it was the tall tale she had been telling herself since graduation; growth was only possible with moving forward, even if that meant abandoning the comforts of the usual in the past.

Then again, seeing their friends had filled her with an overwhelming sense of guilt, made heavier by the way in which they so effortlessly fell back into their old patterns of conversation as if she had not gone months at a time neglecting their friendship. Maybe had she, too, acted like an adult back then, she would not always feel the need to run away from the difficulties in her life rather than to face them head-on like she might be able to now.
Montserrat did not know what he meant by the beginning of his explanation, and if he had been paying attention, he might have noticed the way in which her gaze shifted nervously to him before looking away, onward onto the sea. For a moment, several moments that night she soon realized, she wondered how their relationship might have evolved since had she fought for him or, better yet, how they would have approached a relationship as proper adults. He was different now, she could tell, or was he?

Maybe it was a small part of her justifying her desire to reconnect with him. But none of that mattered anyway, not when he clarified what he was referring to and she laughed a little, embarrassed of course but laughter, nonetheless. She felt a little silly for assuming otherwise but one always did hope around someone like Prosper. “Oh yes, I promised several people I’ll be meeting up with them again so I might not be able to slip away so easily again,” she said jokingly. They were her friends, of course, but they had always been more his.

The bench would have been just fine, she realized, but there was something a little romantic about sitting on a blanket at night on the beach. Surely if she concentrated long enough, she’d find that maybe they’d done something similar before under very different circumstances. “Thanks,” she muttered quietly, not wanting to disturb the peacefulness between them as she sat down, close enough to talk silently but not so close that he might misinterpret her intention. But she had no intentions, or did she? She buried the thought down and took her shoes off instead. There was a little silence between them, the lack of motion bringing back all of these feelings of nostalgia she often avoided.

“Tell me about your new friends,” she stated though it was meant more as a question. Montserrat thought it might be easier to ease the tension she felt if she heard more about how happy he was now, how rewarding and fulfilling his current life. And more than just that, she wanted to know more about how he had changed since then, even wondered if their exchange earlier had meant anything.

Prosper placed his boots down beside him, at the very edge of the blanket. “We should meet up again too, then,” he suggested with a teasing half-smile, as if they didn’t see each other semi-regularly now that they were dating English people who’d been friends for years. He assumed they'd be seeing more of each other, if she stayed with her "boyfriend". Prosper couldn't honestly say he thought it would happen, but one never knew with these things.

“New friends?” Prosper asked, quirking an eyebrow. “You mean, the English ones? You’ve already met… Freya, Danny, maybe Cordelia, Camm…?” He trailed off. If she meant new friends in Paris, then she’d probably know them all already too, at least by name. The Beauxbatons wizarding world wasn’t very big. He supposed there were a small handful who’d come from other places; he’d made friends with some Russian ballerinas, and there was one Australian guy who she wouldn’t have known. His thoughts trailed off as he looked out at the water.

Everything felt very wistful and nostalgic out here; did she feel it too? Was it the moonlight, or the waves? The salt, the sand? He bent one knee, resting his elbow atop it gracefully. He stretched his other leg out, his foot almost touching the sand. He could barely feel his headache if he simply didn't think about it.

“My parents are getting a divorce,” he said, his words feathered at the edges by the breeze. He took a slow breath in through his nose, then sighed and looked at her, eyebrows furrowed slightly. He let himself admire her beauty like he had the ocean’s. "I think it's also why I was a bit of an asshole earlier," he added, glancing down at the strip of fabric between where he was sitting and where she was. "Not an excuse," he added, "it's just... on my mind."

Montserrat could not help but think about how the last time the two had agreed to meet up again they had parted ways only to never follow through on their own accord, though reflecting on it, the witch wondered whether he had only said it to appease her. Now in a relationship in her own right, maybe her presence no longer felt threatening to Prosper anymore, which only made her relive the guilt of that night, of how desperate she must have sounded.

But things were different now, she was no longer consumed by the intensity of romance but rather had taken much more joy in the slow blossoming of trust and affection and all those nice things that came along when things were not taken to the extremes. She nodded in agreement, “We do meet up,” she laughed it off, “at trivia night, things like that,” she explained even though she knew what he meant. But left it at that, not asking for concrete details for things that were probably never going to happen.

“I’ve spent time with them, yes, but I think you’re much closer to them,” she explained. Montserrat had spent time getting to know them, Jeremy had been exceedingly kind in taking her along and introducing her to his friends, something which she had not been as generous in doing, though for personal reasons, not because of him. But Montserrat was often busy and the time she did have off she often preferred to spend with Jeremy or on her own, without the company of his friends. The witch had never been particularly outgoing, to begin with, though that wasn’t necessarily true when she was with Prosper. Then again, everything had felt different, then.

The was some silence between them, the conversation dying out almost immediate as it had started and it made Montserrat realize that she had never been particularly talented at finding ways to keep him interested. But just as she began to consider that the night was winding down his words made her pause as she looked over at him with concern. “I’m sorry that you’re going through that,” she said, dismissing the disparaging comments he made about himself, that was a good enough excuse for her. “I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that is,” she added, tentatively reaching out to rest her hand in his in an effort to comfort him. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently, with no intention to pry if he did not wish to share further.

“That’s probably true,” Prosper said. “I’ve been there longer,” he added with a gracious nod. More importantly though, he thought privately, Jeremy’s relationships seemed more shallow to him than Ariane’s. He was definitely biased, but he wondered how Montse could have a proper conversation with someone like Danny, and compared it to him having one with Freya, which seemed a lot more viable. At least she’d never mocked his accent to his face, so. A step up, at least.

“I’m not really the one going through anything,” he said with a frown, glancing back out at the sea. Prosper wasn’t sure how truthful that was, but he knew that he had it a lot easier than, say, his littlest brother. Or his mum. Or his dad, if he thought about it, but it made him feel too guilty to linger on. He’d always been close with his mother, and hadn’t ever gotten on well with his father. Seeing him so broken and alone though… Prosper pushed those feelings away.

He glanced down at their hands as she slid hers into his, a little surprised by the gesture. Prosper supposed she didn’t need to be careful anymore? Perhaps her abilities were more developed now? He glanced from their hands up to meet her eyes, feeling his heartbeat quicken and wondering if she knew.

“Um,” he said, wetting his lower lip with the tip of his tongue. “I don’t know, it’s kind of a blow,” he said. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, ignoring the soft alarms somewhere in the back of his mind. “I think Léon – Do you remember...? Yes, right, I think he’s taking it pretty hard. He’s still in school,” he added. “It all sort of makes me feel like a… Little kid?” Prosper frowned a bit, then shook his head. “I don’t know, guess I just didn’t think it would happen. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”