marlenethemenace

[marlenethemenace]

CLEMONADE ROBARDS​

Shakespeare. Clem had to laugh. “Maybe the truth wins out in Shakespeare’s world, but his world has always been a bit fucked.” That was an understatement. It didn’t exactly reflect reality. In truth, so often, the truth didn’t win out. And when it was one word against another, it could be anyone’s game. “I don’t really think they know how to go about this, muggle police against magic police. I think it’s less about what actually happened and more about that. Me and Regan are just caught in the middle.” Clem was terrified about what might become of them and how they might be pulled apart by this tug of war of mistrust and untruths. “If I go to prison, will you come for weekly visits?” It was a bad joke, but the tension that ran through her from tip to toe needed it. 

.

Marlene shivered, not from cold but irritation. Not with Clem, not with Regan, but with the world at large, for allowing this to happen. For putting Clem in between yet another rock and hard place, just when she had sidled out from behind another. The both of them were going to need something much stronger than tea to reverse the riling of their poor souls.

“We’re going to strategize,” Marlene decided. First, she would make the tea. Secondly, she would add the booze. Thirdly, she would chain her wrist to Clem’s---metaphorically, of course, but physically, too, if she could swing it. No matter how much she had or had not lost already in her lifetime, Clem was not something she would ever not be willing to fight tooth and nail for. “We have, like, a degree and a half between us. We’re clever. We’ll think of something.” If only because there was no other option.

~ fin ~

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

Gideon grinned triumphantly. Despite the fact that he made the pie for Marlene, he grabbed it and began walking toward the living room, sneaking in bites as he let his gaze wander. “Why don’t you show me around, tell me what your vision is.”

Vision made him sound like a professional, Gideon believed. Like a real contractor and not someone who cobbled his way through learning a new skillset within the recent months. It did come to him somewhat naturally, though. Gideon Prewett wasn’t a visionary nor particularly brilliant, but he was a self-described jack of all trades. And he liked giving his hands work to do.

“I could build you a proper garden, too. Raised beds and everything,” Gideon added in a dreamy voice, mind running fast with ideas. Maybe too fast. He was excited, though, as he wandered throughout the cottage, gaze roaming the cozy space. 

[ fin ]

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

Gideon blinked. “Uh. I mean, sometimes, yeah. I took a nap the other day. First one in eons, and it was brilliant. But…” He shrugged, not sure what words his brain would permit to escape from his lips in the next moment. “Honestly, I just like staying busy. Found myself in a bit of trouble when I was younger, too much time on my hands, I reckon. So I like balancing a few plates at once.” At least, Gideon thought that was the expression.

“But yeah. I can make time, so long as you don’t mind me coming over at odd hours sometimes. And bringing along Freds when he’s not with Hollie and mum can’t babysit.”

.

The mention of Freddie sent her nosediving into panic. Marlene looked around the room, at the entry, at the already torn up room across the way. Wide-eyed, she looked, and she realized just how manic her urge to start tearing apart and rebuilding the house was. Would she still want this when the wallpaper wrinkled and the banister was in shambles? When the roof was leaking and her thumb was bandaged from learning all the tools for the first and second and third time? It would have been one thing to give up on the floor halfway through and hire a professional to finish the job, but the entire cottage?

"I don't really know what I'm doing," Marlene confessed. "I've never replaced a floor before. I'll have to look up how to do it properly, but---" She shrugged. "I start things I can't finish all the time. I don't think I want this to be one of them, but---" But. She knew herself well enough to leave room for anything and everything to go wrong. Maybe Gideon deserved a warning.

"That's a yes, by the way. If you can think you can hold me to really doing it."

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

“You are?” Gideon turned to follow where she pointed. “I could help you with that, you know.” He turned back to face her, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’m pretty good with my hands.” He held both up and wiggled his besides.

“Besides, I’ve been fixing up a bakery, so I’ve got experience. And I won’t cost you much.” Gideon didn’t know if he had it in himself to charge her, given that he was only partially certain he could execute her vision—whatever it may be. Then, he reached for a fork and plopped a large bite into his mouth.

“If you’re interested.”

.

“Hmm?” Marlene thought nothing of the offer, except that she found Gideon’s antics amusing. But then, as she set her fork down on top of the pumpkin pie, it all sank in. She had ripped up the floor boards under the living room window, and now there was practically a contractor standing in the middle of the house.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” Marlene asked, empathetic exhaustion creeping into her voice—but bringing with it, perhaps, the key. Was that the secret to Gideon’s happiness? To have his hands in so many pots that he was too busy to be discouraged when one of them scorched? Was that why Marlene never felt content, because she had damned all her eggs to one basket at a time, and then hurled them all at the wall? Theatrics ebbed away before she said, “Do you really have the time?” If he did, Marlene decided she wanted it.

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

“Oh. Right.” Gideon nodded, eyes still bouncing across the space. “Pumpkin. Thought to go with something seasonal.” Despite the fact he really craved cherry pie at the present.

.

Marlene’s fork halted just as it was about to dive in, recalibrated itself, and then, remarkably delicately, claimed a very tiny piece of pie, heavy on the crust. Pumpkin was far from one of her favorite flavors. She took advantage of Gideon sizing up the house. While it was turned towards her, she searched his expression for signs of judgement. And then, while it was turned away, was when she scarfed down the sampling of pie.

“I’m redoing the whole thing.” Marlene pointed to the living room, where, on the furthest wall, in the middle of an inspired but uninformed fit, she had begun prying up floor boards. “I just started, like, yesterday, but I think I’m going to stick with it.”

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

Gideon followed inside, eyes taking in the new space. “Nice place you got here.” He whistled—or rather, attempted to whistle, but it sounded more like simply blowing air aggressively. He did like this cottage though, with all the warm quilts and homey atmosphere. He could understand why someone would prefer here to Low Street.

“Good, yeah. I was going to offer up mine, but probably best you’re getting them from someone else.” Gideon’s chicken-scratch style of writing was practically infamous. There were moments, more frequent than he cared to admit, that he couldn’t read his own handwriting.

“Anyway, what about soup?”

.

“It’s good when you’re sick.” She was digging into the pie’s wrapping already. “But I’m not sick.” Just exhausted. Burnt out. Depressed. Maybe even insane, it felt sometimes, when she went too long on her own. “What kind of pie is this?” she asked, changing the subject desperately.

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

“Sure I do.” Gideon swatted in front of his face, as if to shoo away her words. “For starters, I like baking, even if I’m average at it. But, also, I thought you might’ve been sick and that’s why you weren’t in class. And what’s better than pie when you’re under the weather?” He figured she wasn’t sick, but the sentiment still stood. Maybe he didn’t need a pie to prove Marlene entered his thoughts, but he sure did enjoy making food for people that mattered to him. It was a physical manifestation of the care in his heart he had for them—as corny as it sounded.

.

The weight of the pie doubled in her hands. Before she retreated back into the house, her smile had turned stale, her eyes dim, her chest hollow. Somewhere in the back of her throat, panic beat a riot rhythm into her heart. The fall of the Statute had made for such an excellent excuse that Marlene had almost forgotten the thing that had turned her hermit to begin with---almost.

"Soup." Marlene left the door open behind her for Gideon. She didn't want to talk about the lessons she'd been missing, but it was better than talking about the affair her mother was having with Gawain's father. The idea of Gideon knowing was so mortifying that she couldn't even bring herself to ask whether he did. So she said, "I'm not dropping out yet. I've been getting the notes."

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

“On purpose, definitely.” Gideon presented the pie. “I baked this for you.” He wondered if she would invite him inside once more, where they would chat endlessly over eating pie straight from the tin. Like the last time he knocked on Marlene McKinnon’s door with a baked goods. Gideon hoped that’s what would happened. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her presence in class until her seat sat empty.

.

“For me?” It had been a week since the Ministry had lifted the curfew, but it hadn’t occurred to Marlene yet just how exciting that was. She’d liked having the excuse to play hermit through her lackluster birthday this year, and then after what had happened to Clem and Regan--- Well, curfew or no curfew, Marlene hadn’t had plans to go much of anywhere in the near future.

But now, with it lifted, she could have company any time she liked.The pie was already in her hands, the smile already spread like frosting over her face, when Marlene said--- “But you don’t have to bake for me. You can just, like, come round and hang out without the extra work.”

[marlenethemenace]

GIDEON PREWETT​

WHEN: Tuesday, 7 December, 1980; afternoon WHERE: Marlene’s Cottage, Banchory WHO: Gideon Prewett & Marlene McKinnon

Gideon couldn’t remember the last time he saw Marlene in class. Of course, these were chaotic times—and the weather turned to a bitter cold, which meant illness was inevitable. But when days turned into weeks, he wondered if everything was alright. Surely Gawain would have mentioned something if all was not well in the State of Marlene McKinnon. Then again, Gawain hadn’t been the most communicative these days.

With a pie in hand and an address he hoped was hers, Gideon apparated into Banchory in pursuit of her cottage. It felt weird being here, in a place where so many souls perished in one day not particularly long ago. A chill shot down his spine, and he was thankful the path led him away from the town centre. When the cottage finally came into view, he wasted no time knocking on the door, smiling wide like a child when she answered.

“Thank Merlin it’s you. I dunno if I’m up for knocking on doors until I find you.”

.

The men showing up on Marlene’s doorstep were growing stranger in selection by the day. Sturgis, she had at least halfway expected, after all the trouble of getting him back home from Egypt. Gideon, whose permanence in England had never been up for question, she had not. From behind the cover of a dust ridden, moth eaten curtain, she had peaked curiously through the window, and wondered: what was he doing here?

Marlene grimaced as she clung to the front door, nursing a stubbed toe, a casualty of her race to find out why she had unexpected company. Unexpected, but not unwelcome.

“Did you wind up here on purpose, or were you lurking in the trees?”

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

“I want to be okay.” And Sturgis meant that, as flawed as he was. “I’m going to be okay,” he added in a resolute tone. 

.

It was difficult to know, in this strange new world, what would come next. But this---this, Marlene wanted so badly to be one of the things that did, that she believed it. That she could not believe anything else, rather than that Sturgis would be okay. That they would all be okay, that they would stand strong together.

“Maybe let’s start with some tea.”

~ fin ~

@sturgispodmore​ @clementinerobards​

[marlenethemenace]

CLEMONADE ROBARDS​

There wasn’t really any one reason. It felt like a lie to her, to go and celebrate a Christmas with her siblings and pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t at all. Their family was torn apart, as though Susan had been, ironically enough, the last thing stitching them altogether. Clem wondered how she’d feel to know half of them weren’t even speaking to John and they were more divided than ever. There was the fact she couldn’t even bring herself to step outside her own front door, her mind still reeling and processing the trauma from the attack that had started and ended in such violence. That her and Regan were now being asked to answer for. Before she answered, Clem downed half her boozy hot chocolate. Finally she said, “Those muggles are pressing charges against me and Regan. They’re saying we started it.” She hadn’t told anyone yet and now as she said it aloud for the first time, acknowledging it, her face crumpled.

.

Marlene’s mouth went slack, her tongue dried up like the Tinworth beach in January. There were no pretty lights she could string up over her words, every bulb that she thought might burn brightly enough had already burnt out. An owl to Atticus, an owl to Fawn, an owl to John--- Her privilege waned in the light of this new day. Not everyone responded to a man in power when the man had magic. Marlene was only just beginning to understand how much of a crutch she had made their parents out to be, now that they were getting kicked out from under her. When not even the adults she had deemed superheroes could save them---

No, no, no. Marlene shook her head, and, calmly, sat down across from Clem, knee to knee. Clem did not need saving. She did not need a rescue, nor a heist, nothing that dramatic and desperate. Marlene was afraid that if she entertained the idea for even a second, that she would somehow inspire a downward spiral. What they needed was the opposite of that.

“If it’s not the truth, then it doesn’t matter.” Could they convince a few muggles to swallow a truth serum given to them by wizards? Marlene hadn’t been on the debate team for nothing. She would at least give it a shot. “The truth wins out, remember? Muggles like Shakespeare. They know it’s true.”

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

Sturgis grabbed her hand, then pulled Marlene into a hug. His arms wrapped around Marlene, covering her like a house wrapped in ivy. The smallest smile played on his lips as relief washed over her. Relieved to be here, with air in his lungs, and a friend who cared for him more than he deserved. Sturgis Podmore was lucky, and he vowed, in that moment, to remind himself of the fact as often as he could. That there was love here, even in a sea of grif. 

“I’m sorry. For everything,” he whispered. 

.

“Don’t.” She huffed her insistence out against him, through laughter and through tears, raining down from the clouds of tension that had finally broken. If there had ever been anything to be sorry for, Marlene had forgiven it already. “I don’t want you to be. I just want you to be okay.” Okay, and alive, and there, within the reach of her orbit’s safety net, for as long as he would let her hover there beneath him. “In, like, due time, obviously.”

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

His bottom lip trembled, and eyes felt heavy with tears. The weight of her request washed over him—no, it practically drowned him. It was all too easy to tumble into grief and think of only what Sturgis lost, to gloss over the truly good and wonderful things in his life and live only in the misery. But the fact of the matter was, he had things worth fighting for. Many of them. And Sturgis wanted to. He nodded, a wordless reply. A desperate hope that Marlene understood how deeply her words resonated. 

.

A noise like a back door left banging in the winter wind whistled through Marlene’s mouth. This was what relief felt like. Not knowing he was conscious inside St. Mungo’s, not knowing he had landed back in the country, not creeping back to her room in the middle of the night after making sure he was still alive and breathing in his bed. It was knowing that if she reached her hand blindly into the darkness, Sturgis would take it and let her try to pull him out.

She reached for his hand now. To squeeze, to hold, to solidify her unspoken promise that she would be there when he did ask for help.

[marlenethemenace]

CLEMONADE ROBARDS​

WHEN: Thursday, 2 December, 1980 WHERE: The Bongalow WHO: Clem Robards & Marlene McKinnon​

Clem picked up another pine needle and twisted it into her homemade wreath. It seemed no matter how many times she did this she couldn’t fix its shape, misshapen and more like a squashed circle than an actual circle, but it was a good enough distraction. A mug of rich Irish hot chocolate sat beside her. She dipped a finger into it now, scooping up some whipped cream and putting it into her mouth. Despite the wreath and the hot chocolate, she said, “I think this is the least Christmassy I’ve ever felt.” It was usually Clem’s favourite time of year, but this year she thought she might be content to sleep through it.

.

“Why the---” Marlene paused, yielding to a sneeze, and then shaking her head in distress. She put down the popcorn string she’d been threading and reached for a tissue. “Why the least?” she asked curiously. There were a lot of things that had sucked the wind out of their Christmas sails that year, but Marlene wondered which had been the tipping point for Clem.

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

His head hung low. Sturgis felt shame, an overwhelming amount that crashed over him. That made him feel as if he drowned. “I don’t know,” he spoke quietly, as if it were a secret. His lip quivered. Sturgis didn’t want to cry, but it felt inevitable these days. “I…” He sucked in air in an attempt to calm himself. To speak clearly, despite the mess of thoughts swirling through his mind. “I don’t want to die. I didn’t figure that out until—” It was almost too late. Almost. “I don’t want to. But I don’t know how to get out of this hole I’ve dug myself into. I was so desperate not to feel like this for even a moment, and I’ve lost myself in all that.” With his jumper balled in his fist, Sturgis rubbed at his nose. 

“I know I’m fucked in the head, and I know that I can’t be the person I was before this, because he’s gone.” Dead felt a more accurate word. “But I don’t want to be dependent on this shit to live anymore. I don’t want it. It’s not who I am. I can see that now.” 

.

Marlene’s brows furrowed as she swallowed back a frown. Fear, rather than doubt, served up second guesses on a silver platter. Could he see that? Maybe now, today, with fresh clarity of mind. But what about tomorrow, and the day after that?  A world one without Sturgis wasn’t one Marlene had any interest in. But what about the days when he might not feel that way again? What could she say to him then, when the tide rushed back in, that would remind him of today?

“People fall into all kinds of holes,” she offered finally. “I don’t think it makes you fucked up for being one of them.” Marlene looked up from her twiddling thumbs, pink in the face as she looked Sturgis in the eye. “Just--- You have to promise me you’ll ask for help when you need it.” Did it really matter that the demand was selfish, if it was for his own good in the end anyway?

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

Sturgis would have rather pried off every nail on his hands that talk about the worst night of his life. It pained him to even think on it for a few moments. But what use was burying this like every other troubling aspect of his life? Running from his grief landed him into this addiction. Sturgis believed that if he was serious about sobriety—and he had every intention of trying to achieve it—he also had to open himself up. Vulnerability was terrifying, even in good company. “I…” He cleared his throat, attempting to banish the ball lodged somewhere in his thread. “I miss him so much, Marlene. Every day.” The words sounded too simple to truly encompass all Sturgis felt.

“Every day I wake up, thinking it’ll be easier. That having to be here, and move on with my life without him part of it… That it should get easier as more time passes. But it never lessens; the grief, the pain, the anger. I’m either overwhelmed by it, or I’ve shut down and I’m numb to it all—but it’s always there. This shadow that follows me, and it doesn’t matter what I do or how far I run, it’s still there.” He sucked in air, trying to keep tears at bay. 

“And I’m so tired of feeling like this. I’m so tired.” 

.

Marlene was not one to be rendered speechless, but it had been happening a lot these days, so much so that she thought she was developing a talent for biting her tongue. In the silence that followed, she pondered that she didn’t know what to say. That she didn’t know what to do. Frustration bubbled up inside her until her heart felt backed up, a fuse only seconds away from bursting.

Why aren’t we enough for you? Marlene thought to scream. But she didn’t; she couldn’t. It wasn’t a question meant for Sturgis. Grief had never pervaded her life in this way; if anything, when Gilbert died, she had felt something closer to relief. Was there a solution, besides running out the clock? Did it make her a bad person — a bad friend — to tell Sturgis that was what it took, that time would heal all wounds, when she had never been pierced through the heart to know its prognosis?

Why don’t I know how to help you? That was the question Marlene should have screamed. If only she’d thought anyone might have had the answer. But another won out, manifesting not as a scream, but a delicate, pleading whisper.

“What do you need from me?”

[marlenethemenace]

STURGIS STUDMORE​

CLEMENTINE ROBARDS

Clem was all too happy to keep busy making tea; filling a pot, getting mugs and sugar and milk. “Yeah, somewhere.” She rustled around in the cupboard for that too, as kittens leapt around her feet. She clucked her tongue at them in admonishment. “You’ll kill me one of these days,” she said fondly. She was too soft on them, but could anything else be expected? Keeping herself busy over here was her way of giving Marlene and Sturgis room to talk, though they didn’t seem to be doing much of that. But there were things to be said she didn’t feel she was a part of, even if she’d like to talk to Sturgis at some point, just the two of them. That wasn’t a thing for today. She handed the honey to Marlene. 

.

Leaning against a counter, Sturgis sipped at his tea. He liked the warmth within his hands, how each sip felt like a trickle of life entering his body again. There he stood, inside a space new to him, overwhelmed with the realization that nowhere felt like home anymore. His room on Low Street likely occupied a new soul these days. He tried to root himself in Egypt, but Sturgis felt disconnected than ever before. As if when he looked in the mirror, he saw a completely different human. Marlene’s Banchory cottage was comfortable and welcoming, but it wasn’t his. And Worthing, his parents—the ends were still far too frayed. Sturgis felt like a seed blowing in the wind, brushing into new settings, never quite finding rest. 

He cleared his throat as if to speak, but no words came out yet. Hazel eyes dropped to the tea within his hands, mulling over what to say. How to communicate the swirling chaos of feelings within him. There was no clear beginning nor promise of an end. Sturgis, simply, was. All he could do was treat today, like the day before, as something new. A fresh opportunity to do better than the last. 

“I know hospitals aren’t exactly your favorite place. So thank you for coming to see me.” He paused for a few moments. “I don’t really know…” A lump formed in the back of his throat; he wore nervousness plainly. “Sorry.” 

.

It had been easier to be angry than it had been to be scared. Until now, as Sturgis gently pried the anger she’d been hanging onto from her hands, and the fear she’d avoided finally struck her all at once---a jolt to Marlene’s heart with the wattage of a bolt of lightning. She buried her face in Jim’s fur until it dried up her tears, and then set him free.

Marlene didn’t know how to accept Sturgis’ apology aloud without feeling self-indulgent. But a piece of her was glad for it, selfish as she knew it was, so she accepted it silently. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, voice thick and stuffy. “Because we can, if you want to. But we don’t have to, either.”