Stopping By, Aeris

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville volunteered (garnering odd looks from the resident biddies) to deliver the inventory lists of all restricted plants and potions ingredients for record purposes to the Ministry of Magic.

"I need to go to Flourish and Blott's anyway," he says evasively when Filius tries to give him the third degree.

He had little business being in the Magical Creatures level, but in truth he was concerned about Aeris and wanted to see if she was okay...

There was either something wrong...or she just didn't want to see him anymore. Either way he wanted to know what was up.

He nodded in greeting to a horde of keepers and werewolf officers gathered around a silver urn of coffee. Neville didn't spot Trent, the large, blonde keeper, or Aeris, either.

He wandered down the long corridor, stopping at each door to read the plaque to each. Ghosts and Ghouls, Veela and Experimental Breeding...where was the Disposals Divison?

[Aeris Bhargova]

Disposals is down at the end, tacked on almost as an afterthought, or perhaps transferred from another division in a time before this. The door was cracked open; if it had been all the way open, it would have a clear view down the hall, to the main office and the coffee urn.

Inside there are two desks, only one of them populated, and it’s not Aeris. It’s a man they’ve recently transferred over; he’s as packed with muscle as he is with attitude. Aeris doesn’t like him in the least.

Try as she might, Aeris just hasn’t been able to make it into work today. Sometimes she is able to, but it has been so long since the last attack that it feels like this one was trying to make up for the time.

When Neville makes himself known, the man (the name plate on the almost-too-small desk says McNulty) almost growls, “What do ye want?”

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville dodges a bright-blue chicken, being chased by an exasperated wizard, and makes his way further into the Magical Creatures division.

He passes a shrouded shape and gags on the smell permeating from the Hag. It's a mixed bag of Beings, Beasts and wizards on this floor. Perhaps the most eclectic collection of personalities... the cowboys of the Ministry definitely dwell here.

The Disposals Division is right at the end of the long corridor, and Neville places his palm against the door.

The man behind the desk makes Charlie Weasley look like a wimp. He looks uncomfortable, squeezed in being the desk, like there's not quite enough space for him to unfurl his shoulder span.

"Good morning," Neville says. "I was looking for Aeris," he says, gesturing to her desk. Her desk is far neater than his own back at Hogwarts.

[Aeris Bhargova]

The wizard looks mildly surprised. "Her?" he gestures with his thumb to her desk, as if it's very rare for someone to actively be searching for Aeris. Well, someone he doesn't recognize from the Ministry--after all, Neville isn't wearing a Ministry-coloured robe.

"She owled in sick. Don't think she'll be here for a day or two." He scowls--he's left with a majority of the work, that means, but he's been told that this is an excusable absence, though not why. Her boss knows why she's out, and she's a good enough worker that they can't really complain.

"You can probably find her in whatever batcave she lives in." It's half derogatory, half not. He's found his new office mate to be quite incomprehensible, and tends to go with general office opinion for the moment.

Aeris is indeed at home, putting off taking her medicine because the best pain stuff makes her high as all get out. But the pain is starting to wear on her quite a bit.

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville nods. "Well...yes...Miss Bharghova...Aeris," he repeats. The man's tone indicates that perhaps he's not that fond of Aeris, and Neville can't think that it can be very pleasant to work with him.

Neville frowns, presses his lips together. "Ah...okay..." He doubts asking if the man knows what's wrong will glean any information. His attitude suggests that Aeris would rather wear pink than confide in her office mate.

Her notes had indicated that perhaps she was not well. He runs his fingers through his hair distractedly. He imagines that it would have to be serious to keep her away from work.

He gives the big man a pained look. "Lay off her, mate," he warns, before turning to leave out of the door.

He's still at a loss with himself as he walks toward the elevator. Arriving at her door is unlikely to be welcome, he thinks.

[Aeris Bhargova]

The man looks at Neville like he has two heads or something. He doesn't see why he should bother being nice to a woman who's content to be surly and glaring and all around unpleasant. She makes him distinctly uncomfortable. Not ot mention no one around here much seemed to like her either. "Well, she sure swoops around like one," he mutters as Neville leaves.

As Neville goes back through the office, one person detaches from the rest. "Hey man." It was Kyle. It was his week to come into the office. "You're Aeris' guy, right?" He at least says this low enough that the rest of the Keepers can't hear him. They'd never stop giving her a hard time.

"Jax told me to tell her that if she wants any coffee, he's ordering this week. He never remembers to owl and I keep forgetting. So if you see her, pass the message on, yeah?" He's the friendly, outgoing sort, though definitely a Keeper. He might not be on the best of terms with Aeris, but he's not on the worst of terms either. Something to do with his boyfriend controlling her coffee supply.

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville's mouth thins into an unimpressed line. "Bastard," he mutters softly to himself. He seriously wonders how Aeris gets through a day without wanting to punch the dude's lights out.

Neville stops and tries to place the man...he's short and muscular, with olive-toned skin and short, black hair. He can't remember seeing him out at Red Dawn. "Ah...yeah." They were dating, so he supposed so.

"Neville Longbottom," he says, extending his hand in greeting, wondering how he knew who he was.

"Sure." Neville blinks, taking in all the new information. "Ah, so you're a mate of Jax's?" Neville asks. It's just like Jax...the man does seem a little scatterbrained.

Neville knows how important Aeris' coffee is to her; maybe this warrants a visit after all. She'll be pissed if she misses out on ordering.

[Aeris Bhargova]

"Sorry, man. I'm Kyle. Yeah, I'm a mate of Jax's." Irony of the phrasing makes one corner of his mouth quirk up higher than the other. "Jax told me you came over and took a look at that vine the other day." He'd described him well enough that Kyle at least had an inkling of what Neville looked like.

"Sorry. I should have introduced myself first." His smile is easy and charming. "It's just a grumpy Aeris is the last thing Jax wants scaring customers away with her glare, and he doesn't like people to be unhappy or unfed." The joke is gentle and isn't meant to be offensive.

"But yeah. Just pass the message on, so i don't get caught in the crossfire, eh? Thanks mate." The man has an energy that's channeled into easy charm and almost perpetual movement. He claps him on the shoulder and heads back to the desk where he grimaces at the stack of paperwork.

[Neville Longbottom]

Kyle is incredibly friendly and his easy manner has Neville smiling in return. "Oh, yeah...bad bad plant," he says with a laugh. "He forgot to tell me about Edna beforehand, though," he says with a rolls of his eyes.

"No worries," he says. "So you work with Trent, then?" Neville asks. The big, blonde keeper is obviously either on holiday or up at the reservation.

Neville smiles indulgently. "But when she does smile it's a beautiful thing," he counters gently and lifts a shoulder. "I'll pass the message on, yeah," he confirms. "Cheers, Kyle. Good to meet you."

Neville presses the elevator button and climbs aboard with a flock of lavendar memos. He muses all the way to the Atrium, before taking the Floo to Diagon Alley, where he buys some chicken soup and the newest DADA journal from Flourish and Blotts.

He figures if Aeris doesn't feel like company, the least he can do is bring her something to make her feel better. And he can deliver Jax's message. Fifteen minutes later, he finds himself standing outside her door, knocking gingerly.

[Aeris Bhargova]

Kyle snorts. "Typical Jax," he says fondly. "Thoughts sometimes go in one ear and out the other, seriously. Head isn't always in this world." And he was beginning to think that's the truth of it. Jax just isn't always fully in the world of the now. That River of his or whatever.

"Yeah. Trent's on holiday so I'm stuck here with the paperwork this week." He wrinkles his nose. "He needs the time with his gal though, I think." He's fond of Jani, and closer to her after his months with her in Siberia.

"Cheers, man. I'll see you around." He grins. "Send her our regards."


Aeris hears a knock at the door, and automatically she thinks it's Mrs. Kuwalski coming to check up on her yet again. She levers herself off the couch and back into her chair and wheels toward the door. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she says. "No, I've not taken my medicine yet, and no, I don't need a babysitt...er." She had been undoing the locks and waved down the wards, and sh eopened the door on the last part.

To see Neville standing there. Part of her is incredibly glad to see him, and for a moment it shows, before her arms cross in an unconsciously defensive posture as she's forced to look up at him from her wheelchair. She feels so vulnerable all of the sudden, stripped to her most vulnerable in front of a person she really cares about. Her cheeks flush with uncharacteristic red.

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville chuckles. He's glad that Jax seems to have made a good friend here in London...the man had seemed a little lonely to him. Just first impressions of Jax, he thought. He was scatterbrained, though, Neville had to admit.

"Lucky man," he says with a smile. "I've just finished my hols." Tuesdays are mostly Herbology free in the mornings, and he's always got time for an outing or to mark papers. Thursdays are his most hectic days, with back-to-back classes all day.

-----

Neville smiles. Aeris obviously thinks he's her neighbour. Mrs K is like a mother hen sometimes. He clutching the chicken soup and the journal and he smiles when she opens the door. To his credit, it freezes for only a second in complete surprise.

Instead of a red nose and a cold, Aeris is in a wheelchair.

He's worried she's going to be pissed that he intruded. "Hi," he says quickly. "I thought you might like some...get better food," he says, wavering for a moment. "And Jax needs his coffee order, too," he adds, giving himself a more solid reason to be here. He looks abashed. "And I was worried, too."

[Aeris Bhargova]

He freezes and she doesn't realize until he speaks that she's holding her breath, waiting. It's a surprise that he doesn't immediately bring up the most obvious and enormous fact--she's in a damned wheelchair. She's mildly surprised that her main reaction isn't anger, though defensiveness is present.

Mostly, it's embarrasment and some measure of shame that she's in this fucking thing. That he has to see her in it. That he'll think her less for this thing that's happened to her.

She's scared to try to peek at what he's thinking; instead, she pulls inward, hiding unknowingly behind a bit of her hair as well. "Come in," she tells him, almost subdued, backing her wheelchair up in an easy way that shows she has more than a little familiarity with the workings of the contraption.

"Um, po, thank you," she says. Normally she would greet him with a hug and probably a kiss, which varied in thoroughness depending on where they were. Now, though, she's significantly lower down than him, and feels a pang of awkwardness and shame again. She cards her fingers through some of her hair, using the gesture to peek up at him but letting the hair fall back forward again immediately.

She knows she looks a bit of a mess. She's in her sleeping clothes, though they're clean ones--an old, loose tank top and worn soft pants. Her hair is mildly damp, almost dry from the shower she'd wanted to stay in forever earlier. She's paler than normal, almost a little pasty, and there are dark mark sunder her slightly red-rimmed eyes. There's also the slight signs of pain and strain on her face--across her brow, around her eyes and mouth, th every way she moves that might signal that she hurts when she moves.

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville turns to shut the door behind them and he bends down to touch her cheek and brush a kiss to her lips. His fingertips linger and lightly caress the dark marks under her eyes.

His brain is still catching up with him as he puts everthing onto the counter, frowning slightly. This is something that she hasn't told him about, but from her letter, it's not the first time. She seems almost accomplished in wheeling around...it's something she's done before.

"You're in pain," he says quietly. "What happened, Aeris?" he asks.

He's not angry that it hasn't been mentioned before, because he knows her by this stage and admitting to pain or injury isn't something that she'd volunteer without him, well, pitching up at her door. Oh, the irony.

[Aeris Bhargova]

She reaches up and touches his thick hair, returning the brief kiss. His gentleness throws her off, as always. She doesn't always know how to respond, but she finds that she unexpectedly enjoys it. Somehow he manages to balance respect for her and what she does with treating her like a woman, and it's quite novel and enjoyable.

She doesn't meet his eyes but she nods at his quiet statement. It's obvious enough from the way she holds herself, the lines of stress and pain on her face. "You can call it an ... old wound, if you will. A curse that flares up every so often and puts me in this thing." Her voice is dark and perhaps a little bitter as she indicates the wheelchair.

Her lower back and legs are hurting quite a bit, even now. Of course, she's taken only minimum meds so far, but she's going to have to take more soon. She hates it, espeically the one she takes the day after or two--the narcotic sort of painkiller that pretty much gives her a high. she doesn't enjoy it.

She rubs the palms of her hands, studying the faint red marks on them already from the wheelchair. She's unused to it at the moment--she'll probably have blisters if she's in the chair all day. It's been too long, though she's been grateful for the space.

[Neville Longbottom]

Neville grimaces, although he’s nodding to indicate that he understands what she means. “Well…that’s…cr@p,” he says, resting his hand on the back of her wheelchair, fingertips touching her shoulder. “Honestly…Unforgivables and Dark Curses,” he mutters to himself. It’s a very personal topic for him, with his parents affected the way they were. “Effing curse damage.”

“Picked it up on the Dark Creatures hunt?” he asks, almost too casually. He wants to know how long, where, what, why for…can it be cured…but he doesn’t want to overwhelm her…not when she looks so…

She looks so wan and in pain. “Can I make us tea?” he asks. “I’m parched,” he says with an affable smile as he winds behind her kitchen counter. “Anything else you want while I’m here?” It’s probably an easy out for her…he’s giving her an excuse to ask for help without asking for help.

While the kettle boils, he sighs. “My parents are in St. Mungo’s,” he tells Aeris.