small talks too much [dennis]

He could hear an accusation in her next words; the subtext was only barely not-text at this point. If you’d have— “Right,” he said, after briefly cycling through the usual list of three or four monosyllabic responses he had when he didn’t know what to say, or didn’t want to say anything at all. Right. Yeah. Oh? Sure. Filler words. Dennis nodded slowly a few times, but he wasn’t looking at her.

It was his fault. She was saying it, and he couldn’t disagree, but he still felt a little pissed off and more than a little on edge that he was here, talking about this, at all. Dennis sipped his rum and coke, glad he’d already had so many shots and impatient for them to all kick in at once. Because she’d brought it up, he was rereading through old scripts in his head, replaying old scenes. That day in the hostel (February, 2001), that night in the bar, then the train, then the playground (July, 2002). It was too easy to set the stage in his mind, to play it out best he could from every angle.

More than a year just between those two moments, he thought. A year and a half between them, then half a year or so between last time they’d properly talked and now. It felt strange that he’d known her since the start of two-thousand-and-one, though ‘known’ was doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, much like ‘met’ did when she’d put it like that… “Yeah, uh, that’s my fault,” he said, his frown deepening just a touch. He’d felt pretty wretched and guilty about it these past few months, and a little guilt slipped through the defensiveness here. “I didn’t mean to disappear,” he added, but he didn’t elaborate. Didn’t look up from his glass. “Sorry.”

How could he say that shit like brushing his teeth and making food and getting out of bed had gotten especially difficult, and that it had lasted for months? That he’d gotten behind on rent, then blown the small amount of savings he’d had to cover it because he’d basically stopped working all through winter? He hadn’t gone through any recent traumas; there was no good reason for him to have been so useless for so damn long. No reason to drop off of the face of the earth, no reason to have stopped functioning, stopped responding to notes, stopped leaving his house. He felt ashamed of it, and was sure that she didn’t want to hear about it.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him, then-- what happened in August? He missed their pub plans, and then it had sort of snowballed from there. But then he said right and she blinked, still looking at the bottles along the wall behind the bar, her gaze sliding over the labels in the dim lighting. Right. Right. It played over and over in her head, as if focusing on that one word would give her some sort of idea for how to transition to what she was trying--no, she wasn’t really trying--to tell him. Naturally, she had no better ideas than she had thirty minutes ago.

She sipped her gin again, leaving her hand wrapped around the glass as she set it back on the bar. She counted the seconds as they slipped by, mostly to see how long she could keep her hand on the icy glass, partly to see how long they’d sit in silence because it was his turn to say something, she reckoned.

Eighteen seconds.

Edith turned her head to look at him, matching his frown as he said it was his fault. She wasn’t trying to make him feel bad about it--not intentionally, anyway--sure she was just trying to explain why she hadn’t told him about the book any sooner. “I know,” she said, quietly, after he apologized. She could venture a guess as to what happened, but it was hard to change lanes so quickly, wrap her head around it not being something she had done.

“Are you…” She trailed off, her gaze flicking back to the wall of bottles. Was he better now, she wanted to ask, but it seemed like a loaded question. That, and there was plenty else she needed to say first, about the book, about… whatever. “I think I might quit the magazine,” she said instead, with a glance at Dennis. The thought had occurred to her a couple weeks ago, but she had yet to say it out loud; it gave her a few seconds of reprieve from thinking about the book, anyway.

I know.

He risked a glance at her then, wondering if this was an ‘I know’ or an ‘I know’, deciding after a moment that it was too difficult to tell at this point. Dennis exhaled a silent sigh, hesitated, then brought his glass to his lips and finished his drink. He was starting to feel it, thankfully. Just a little, but it was there; the feathering at the edges of his perception, the way it was easier to relax. Ah, the relief of inebriation. He didn’t think he’d be able to get through this sober.

There wasn’t really anything more to say about it, so neither of them did. They were both facing the bar now, which was easier, even if it made his chest hurt just a little. Idiot. There was a part of him that wanted to ask more about her book, like what kinds of details were in there and if anyone would know that there were parts about him. He assumed she hadn’t used his name, but would someone like Dean read it and know? The list of muggleborns around his age wasn’t very long.

She wasn’t looking at him now, so he glanced at her when she spoke again. Dennis raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to finish her question. She didn’t. He looked back down at his empty glass, his mind digging its fingers into that half-question and trying to pick it apart even though he couldn't know what she'd been about to say. He wasn't good at letting things go, he'd learned these past few years. Big things or little things.

“Really?” Dennis asked, genuinely surprised. He was quiet for a beat. “What’re you going to do next?” he asked, meeting her eye. His expression was only a little troubled, and it’d been sitting in that space for the past ten minutes, so he figured he probably didn’t give anything extra away  right now. No extra stress, no extra concern, even thought it was there, bubbling under the surface. If she left, then where would he run into her accidentally? Would she just sort of fade out of his life? Did she hate him for being so flaky?

Really? “Really.” Not that she was really going to quit, but that she was really thinking about it. She didn’t answer his next question, not right away, finally meeting his eye and not knowing what to do with the eye contact. The mood had shifted, she thought— as soon as she had stopped talking about her book. That probably wasn’t a good sign of things to come, but Edith pushed it from her mind.

“I.. dunno.” She shrugged her eyebrows rather than her shoulders, hunching those as she reached for her drink again. “No offense to them, but—“ Edith looked to the ceiling before she met Dennis’s eye again. “I dunno if that’s, like..” she trailed off, realizing why writing was easier than talking, unsure which words would be best. “For me to make a point—“ with the book, mainly, but with anything she wrote— “I dunno if it’s enough.” She blinked, still looking at him, figuring if anyone knew what she meant, it would be Dennis.

It was like everything was leading to the book, all the Prophet articles and the Quibbler interviews and-- “Did you see that article in the Prophet a couple months ago, about the Obliviators?” She didn’t wait for him to answer either way. “That was mine.” Not like she had written it, but-- “My idea. My sources.” She’d brought Cordelia into it because she thought her own name was rubbish, too poorly associated with the Ministry criticism already, and the conspiracies of the Quibbler, too-- and that was nine months ago, so her name was surely worse, now.

She didn’t know how to explain herself, hoped she didn’t need to, but she pressed on, regardless. “And besides being taken seriously, or whatever--” she was embracing the tangent she was on now, full steam ahead, away from talk about the book-- “I dunno what’s left.” She glanced away again, picking up her drink. Even with his tiny answers, the one word things, it was still so easy to talk to him. (And he had said more than one word, which was probably why she was rambling so much now.) And despite how much she was thinking (about what to say and how he might feel about whatever she said), it was like she didn’t have to think about it too much.

Edith looked at her drink and set it down, rather than taking another swallow. It was catching up with her; she cleared her throat, looked at Dennis again. “Sorry-- We haven’t talked in ages and I just--” she grimaced, hoping that finished her sentence well enough.

No offense to them. The corner of Dennis’ lips quirked up just a touch. He nodded in the stops between her words, encouraging her to keep going. It felt obvious, suddenly, just how much he’d missed her. As she spoke, he wondered again what she’d started (and then quickly stopped) saying. Are you — What, exactly? He knew the ‘you’ would irk him.

Enough, she said. She emphasised the word, so he let himself linger on it. Was there ever an ‘enough’, he wondered? He could already feel himself mythologising it in the back of his mind, along with other adjectives that he, or they, had given a similar treatment.

Necessary. Reckless. Enough. They had a ring, as a trio.

He didn’t say anything as she mentioned the obliviation article, waving over the bartender again, hoping she wouldn’t stay on the topic. Dennis ordered more drinks, mulling everything over in his head. “Right,” he said carefully, nodding to show he was listening. He hadn’t read the article, but didn’t say so either way. He hadn’t read much of anything recently. Dennis felt like he’d only just been reborn into the world again these past couple months, like a baby deer or something, stumbling and dazed. Fumbling to get his life up and running again.

“I dunno either,” Dennis said, agreeing. He felt some of his defensiveness deflate, and ran a hand back through his hair wondering why the hell he was so bad at this. It shouldn’t be such a big deal, right? He felt guilty and wanted to fix things somehow, but he felt annoyed at her, too, for bringing that other stuff up. It was strange to be in the middle of those two things.

What was left? Probably a lot, he thought distantly. Could there ever be enough written about Obliviation, Azkaban, or Muggleborns? The statute? The way muggleborn kids were still treated, still introduced to the magical world, even now? The older he got, the more fucked up he realised everything was, and the more helpless he felt about it all. The muggle world was a mess, but there was such a particular blend of helplessness and uselessness he felt in the magical one.

“No, don’t—” he stopped, letting her speak instead, but once she was done, he repeated the thought. “Don’t apologise,” he said, meeting her gaze. Dennis sighed, looking down, then stopping himself from avoiding her gaze and looking back up. He turned a little, a troubled expression on his face. There was a tug in his chest, and he was quiet for a moment, trying to summon the right words here. "I wanna know," he said, the words quiet like a confession. "About your life, yeah? Like—" Dennis stopped talking as the bartender appeared with his drinks.

"Cheers," he said to the man, sighing once he turned his back, his gaze on his rum and coke.

Dennis didn’t know either, and that wasn’t as comforting as she wanted it to be. She wanted that immediate confirmation, him agreeing with her; she didn’t think she could go back to writing at the Quibbler after this. Another book? Maybe, if this one went well. Probably, if it didn’t. There was plenty left to say--there were only six muggleborns, seven including herself, in her book--so she didn’t think it would be radio silence from this point on, but no one would care if she just went back to the magazine.

But he wasn’t disagreeing with her, and he had said more than one word. Edith nodded, taking that as good enough.

She apologized for her rambling, though it was sort of on par for them. They would either say one word or one hundred, there wasn’t really an inbetween. He looked at her, telling her not to apologize, and she pulled up half a smile. He looked away, looked back at her, and Edith swallowed, unsure what to say next, sure it would be another apology if she said anything. (She knew what she needed to say, knew what she was avoiding-- but she knew it would ruin whatever sort of thing they seemed to be attempting to salvage.)

He wanted to know, he said, and Edith raised her eyebrows, silently asking for more clarification. “Yeah?” She asked, once he had added about your life, but the bartender returned with Dennis’s refill--Edith still needed to finish the one she had--before she could answer him any further.

She waited for the bartender to leave, wanted to wait until Dennis looked at her again; she didn’t make it more than a few seconds of waiting before she went ahead and answered him anyway. “I almost, uh--” she glanced down at her own drink, sure this would have been a lot weirder to tell Dennis months ago, when the job had still been a possibility-- “Did a consultancy thing with the Ministry.” She nodded, still looking at her drink. “Muggle Liaison Office,” she said, turning her chin to look at him again.

Yeah?

Dennis almost huffed a small puff of air from his nose, as if the fact that she was asking, clarifying, was funny to him. In a way, it was; it seemed so obvious to him that he was interested, that he cared, that it felt bizarre — funny was the wrong word — to imagine otherwise. It was his fault that she didn’t already know, though, and that thought was sobering.

Luckily, the bartender interrupted before he had time to dig his mental fingers too far into it.

He reached for his drink, feeling steadier with a glass in his palm. “Wow,” Dennis replied, raising his eyebrows. He was still angry at the ministry (at the wizarding world, at magic itself), of course — it didn’t take much prodding for him to feel a little anger licking at his insides. He didn’t really want to be angry right now, he thought. He could still feel a little tension in his shoulders as he purposefully skirted the subsequent thoughts that came to mind — questions about how much she’d written in her book. About Foxglove. About him. About “how they’d met”. Dennis didn’t want to be angry, sitting here beside someone he’d been sort of close to not that long ago. He felt a sad kind of longing for the ease of last August.

“For like… Treatment of muggles, or… Liasing with muggle departments…? Dennis wasn’t really sure what all the different ministry departments actually did. It was a bit embarrassing to reveal his lack of knowledge, but he could feel the alcohol, that familiar, lovely slowness, settling in the back of his mind, and decided to blame it on that. Silently, he urged it to go faster. Sipped his rum to help it along. Kept his fingers wrapped around the drink even after he placed it back down on the bar.

“But you didn’t?” he asked, glancing at her curiously.

Wow.

That was a better response than she expected, given everything they had talked about, all the opinions they shared about the Ministry. That said, it wasn’t an excited wow, not one that meant he was happy she had a potential job, something more reliable than The Quibbler. But it wasn’t an outright angry one, either, which was more along the lines of what she had been expecting. Edith had another drink instead of saying anything else, not wanting to offer more information that Dennis didn’t want--or need--to hear, like how her now boyfriend had been the one to get the job set up for her.

She had another swallow of gin, only stopping when Dennis spoke again.

“Think it was more like, liaising with muggleborns. Not directly.” She sniffed and angled herself toward Dennis a little more, looking at him while talking to him. “Advising on how to do it better,” she said with a shrug, because she wasn’t about to claim that she was an expert on how to talk to people. He knew better than most that she was rather shit at it, in fact. But if she could have prevented one small witch being called ‘little miss’ by the Ministry official telling her all about Hogwarts--

But she didn’t get the job, which Dennis reminded her, except she had turned it down, she reminded herself. The technicality was important to her. “Nope,” she said, picking up her drink again. “You’ll love this, actually,” she added with a little laugh before she had another drink, nearly finishing it. “Condition of hiring was not writing about the Ministry anymore, so…” Edith shrugged and set her glass down, waving the bartender over again.

“It would have been a good thing, I think.” The job, not the conditions, and Christ did she wish they had talked about this months ago.

Dennis drank, and nodded, and drank again. Thank god his sobriety was receding, dissolving away more quickly now as the alcohol lapped at his insides. He hadn’t been drinking so much lately — or trying not to, at least — but he was glad, now, that he’d only ever been good at temperance of expression, and never when it came to this sort of vice. It was finally kicking in, and he was already feeling better. Less irritated. Less defensive.

She laughed a bit, and one side of his lips quirked; he was amused already, anticipating whatever it was that she was about to reveal. His gaze lingered for the smallest moment as her lips met her glass before he glanced away appropriately, waiting for her to finish the thought. “Ugh, It wasn’t,” he protested, “loving it” in the exact way she’d known he would. It wasn’t all bitter, though; there was a part of him that liked that small exchange, too. A part of him that missed the familiarity of sharing.

His glass was empty; he ordered again when she did.

“Yeah?” he asked, glancing at her, not really sure why it would have been a good thing, if it meant she couldn’t write anymore. Well, couldn’t write about the ministry specifically, he supposed, but Edith was a political writer; being banned from writing about the government at all was muzzling in such a particular way, wasn’t it?

“I wish…” he started to talk, softly, then straightened up a bit in his seat, feeling a little lighter and a little heavier at once. He adjusted his course before continuing. “I think it’s really cool, what you’re doing,” he told her, looking at her. “What you’ve done.” Could he turn down a job for his morals? At the end of the day there were bills to pay and food to eat, right?

“I wish I could do more stuff,” he said. It wasn’t where the sentence had been going, but it was true. Dennis wasn’t a kid like he had been when they’d met (—met. The word caught like wool on a thorn in his head—), and he didn’t know if he was entitled to feel quite as powerless as he still did sometimes. Maybe he could try harder, be more politically engaged, like she was. Maybe being around her made him feel more grounded, made him feel more attached to things he already cared about. “But I dunno, I barely got out of bed for the past six months, so.” It was supposed to be a joke, but Dennis wasn’t a very funny person, so it came out a little flat. He gave her a bit of a smile anyway, trying not to seem as wistful as he felt.

“Yeah,” she confirmed with a shrug, hands in her lap, fidgeting with the end of her sleeve. The job would have been a good thing; she had been convinced it would. She had convinced herself, mostly, but she’d be lying if she said that Fergie thinking she’d be a good fit for it hadn’t influenced her a little bit. But mostly it was that she would have been an active part of the reform she had been writing about, actively trying to do something--even if it was just revamping procedures about how to talk to muggles and their magical children.

But there wasn’t a job now so she was back to just words, though the book had a lot of words, and she had used the stupid conditions of the consultancy as some sort of catalyst to get the book finished, add more details-- more details that she didn’t think Dennis would like very much.

She finished her drink, chewed on an ice cube.

Edith looked at Dennis again, eyebrows up, wondering what he wished. But he changed his mind, telling her something else, something that made her feel worse, if that were even possible. He thought what she was doing was cool. What she’d done. Until he knew the whole story of course, the Foxglove part of it. She didn’t trust herself not to say anything about it if she opened her mouth to thank him, so she offered him a small, lopsided smile instead.

He told her what he had been wishing, then, and Edith glanced down for a brief second before she refocused on his face. He was only twenty--twenty-one as of a few days ago, she realized belatedly--and had a stable job and a decent enough place to live, all that despite dropping out of Hogwarts (and everything else) so she thought he was doing fine; she didn’t say any of that though, knew it wouldn’t help. He said something else, though, and Edith nodded slowly as she watched their new drinks being carried over.

She waited until they were alone again (and after she had had a long swallow of gin). “Yeah, well.” Well what? Well nothing. She didn’t know what to say to that, either, but she returned his smile. “Thought I had done something.” She waited a beat before adding: “To you.” To earn the silent treatment, she meant, stopping short of saying she was glad it was just the depression and not her. “Glad you’re out of bed, anyway,” she tacked on, unsure of anything better to say.

He didn't press for an explanation; Dennis couldn't decide if the job sounded good or bad. He didn't really get it.

She didn’t say anything as the bartender put their drinks down in front of them, then cleared away the empties. Yeah, well. Well what, he wondered? There wasn’t much to say about it, and he sort of wished he hadn’t said anything at all. “No,” Dennis said a beat belatedly, shaking his head. A frown appeared. He hadn’t been expecting the to you part of her sentence.

“Yeah—” he started to reply to the other bit, the bit about being out of bed, but that didn’t seem to matter very much right now. “Look, I can— I can see why you’d think that,” he said thoughtfully, eyes flicking from his glass up to meet hers. Eye contact was a lot less intimidating this many drinks in, he was finding. Everything was less intimidating, this many drinks in. Each sip seemed to bring last August a little closer. (Dangerous, probably).

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his shoulders rising in a small shrug automatically. The shrug made his words seem more casual, but he really wasn’t trying to convey ‘casual’ with his apology. So, bluntly, he added, “For making you.”

“I just, I don’t even know—” Dennis sighed, frustration seeping into the way he spoke. He sat up a bit straighter in his seat, wondering how the hell he could talk about any of it. There was no reason for it, he thought again. Nothing had happened this time; he hadn’t even been unhappy last summer. Almost the opposite, even. “It wasn’t you,” he said definitively, because that was the important part, in the end. “I liked being close, like we were.” A pause. “Wish we still were.” He looked back at his glass, knowing full well he was being far too intense and would probably regret it later. In the moment, though, it felt freeing to share.

Yeah, he said, and Edith hoped he was agreeing with her being glad he was out of bed-- not the other thing. No, it was about the other thing, her thinking she had done something to warrant him not talking to her. (That would be later, after he’d read her book.) But he understood where she was coming from; the feeling of Dennis being inside her head was less comforting than it usually was. She nodded once and added a quiet, “Yeah,” before having another drink.

She nodded again at his apology, accepting it but feeling bad that he thought he needed to apologize; the small part of her that wanted him to feel a bit bad about ghosting her like that was large enough to keep herself from telling him he didn’t need to. She glanced away, looking back at him quickly when he added for making you. That felt different, though she couldn’t pinpoint how or why.

And he didn’t know either. Edith sighed along with him, nodding one more time when he said it wasn’t her. She believed him--of course she did--and her stomach did a little flop. She watched him as he spoke, her grip tight around her glass. Dennis liked being close--then, not physically now--and she nodded again for what felt like the hundredth time (but it was easier than saying anything). He wished they were still close, and the weird feeling in her stomach shifted to her chest.

“Me too,” she said after a few more seconds. This-- god, this wouldn’t survive her book. That made her decision easier, at least, that she didn’t need to tell him anything now, didn’t need to come clean about anything because it wouldn’t change what he would read in a month. If he could go six months without talking to her without her doing anything-- she had another drink, not really wanting to think about it now.

She was quiet for a moment, and Dennis kept staring at his glass, trying not to seem like he was holding his breath. When she spoke again, he glanced at her, making sure he hadn’t imagined her response. Me too, she said. She missed being close, too. Their eyes met and Dennis nodded once, a bit of a smile pulling at one side of his lips before it faded. He felt like he had so much more to communicate, and hoped she was getting some of it non-verbally. He hoped she was saying things without words too, and that wasn’t just in his head. It felt like it.

Dennis felt a bit guilty for indulging in the catharsis of confession, even if the confession in question was only a minor — and obvious, he thought — thing. Guilt was better than embarrassment though, and he found the more he drank the less of the latter he felt. He sipped his drink again, feeling — well, not quite lighter, but heavy in a less bad way, or something. He missed her. He missed being close. It was obvious to him, and now she knew it, too.

“Remember when you came back to mine last summer?” he asked after a beat, a curious look in his eye. “And you broke my housemate’s… Vase thing? That big jar? I dunno…” Dennis made a vague shape with his hands, thinking of the water spilling everywhere, the glass shards, and his housemate appearing before they could clean it up with magic. “Another reason I need to stop living with muggles,” he added, amused.

Dennis smiled, mostly, and Edith returned it, also mostly. She blinked and looked away, waiting a beat before she raised her glass to her lips. She probably should have said something else, but the months of silence made her want to wait for him to say something first. Maybe elaborate on the closeness, because there was a lot wrapped up in that word, a lot she could read into. Nothing she wanted to acknowledge if she didn’t need to.

But he didn’t elaborate, or, not directly. She nodded; she remembered. “I blamed it on the cat,” she said with a lopsided grin. There was no cat, she found out too late, though she could have sworn she had seen one. But it was his--the housemate’s--fault for leaving a jar full of water on the edge of the counter where anyone with elbows could have knocked it off. And then he hadn’t let them clean it up. “He’s mental,” she added before having another drink.

Edith lowered her glass with a laugh. “Maybe just those muggles.” She was sure there were worse housemate’s out there, but there were bound to be better ones, too.

She thought about asking if he would be moving to London but she could understand him not wanting to live there. She didn’t really want to, anyway, and she did. Of course, she had made the initial plan to move back because Emma had a room open and Edith wanted to stop living with her parents and she thought she would be taking that Ministry job. The job had fallen through and Edith had moved back anyway, then mostly just for the proximity to Fergie… who she still hadn’t mentioned yet.

It hadn’t felt right to bring it up when she had mentioned the job, though that would have been the best segue. But she couldn’t just flip the conversational switch to it, either. He worked for the Ministry and she remembered Dennis having opinions about how she could possibly be with someone who worked for the establishment she was actively protesting against. She didn’t want to have to defend him.

But thinking about that past conversation only led her to think about others, about their two days in France, the woman she had interviewed then. She was in the book, too. And there it was-- her thoughts were back on the book and the things she was neglecting to mention. Fuck. “I--” As soon as she had started down that road--the one where she told him the things she’d written about Foxglove, that Edith still had that damn strip of photos they had taken that night--she backtracked, saying something else instead: “I tried to call my book Mudblood.” She smiled again, remembering his tattoo, before she took another drink.