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hollowed-theory-hall · 2 months

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The Riddle of Tom Riddle: Part 5/7

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6, Part 7)

After Graduation

Continuing with my analysis of Tom Riddle's character, we reach his graduation. Here things start getting a little murkier. You'd expect we'll have more information the more recent it is, but there is very little information about Tom's life between his graduation in 1944 and his return to Britain under the alias Lord Voldemort in 1967.

I want to discuss the continuation of his quest for immortality, his choice of profession, and a little bit about his family's legacy.

Graduation

So from Dumbledore, we know Tom graduated top of his class. Head boy and 12 NEWTs, all Os under his belt:

He reached the seventh year of his schooling with, as you might have expected, top grades in every examination he had taken. All around him, his classmates were deciding which jobs they were to pursue once they had left Hogwarts. Nearly everybody expected spectacular things from Tom Riddle, prefect, Head Boy, winner of the Award for Special Services to the School. I know that several teachers, Professor Slughorn amongst them, suggested that he join the Ministry of Magic, offered to set up appointments, put him in touch with useful contacts. He refused all offers.

(Half-Blood Prince, pages 430-431)

Dumbledore says Tom was offered multiple positions in the ministry and that he refused all of them. We knew he applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts, which I'll discuss in a moment, but I want to talk about his refusing these offers and why.

Now, I made no secret of the fact Dumbledore has an agenda when he's showing Harry these memories, he wants Tom to appear as an irredeemably evil monster that must be destroyed. Now, Tom isn't a good man, not by a long shot, but in his younger years, I don't think he was beyond help.

Regardless, I'm sure Slughorn did help him set up appointments with ministry personnel, it sounds just like the sort of thing Slughorn would do. The thing is, Tom is incredibly ambitious, he is as Slytherin as they come in that regard. Most ministry positions, especially the ones that'd be offered to him aren't anything shiny to brag about. These positions Dumbledore is talking about were probably for a clerk or secretary. We see with Percy Weasley, that the approach in the ministry is that you start from the bottom and climb up. Tom, who got used to thinking of himself at the top would've struggled being ordered around like we see Crouch ordering Percy. Tom would've murdered his boss before running around to someone else's whims.

I think he didn't take a position in the ministry for this exact reason. He's prideful and ambitious and he wanted a position that'll give him more freedom and control.

Tom loves being in control, all his childhood was in a state of lacking — both in food, belongings, clothes, and mostly control. Tom had very little he could control about his life and we see him seek to exert control, not only on his own life, but on others.

but Voldemort first approached Professor Dippet and asked whether he could remain at Hogwarts as a teacher.” “He wanted to stay here? Why?” asked Harry, more amazed still. “I believe he had several reasons, though he confided none of them to Professor Dippet,” said Dumbledore. “Firstly, and very importantly, Voldemort was, I believe, more attached to this school than he has ever been to a person. Hogwarts was where he had been happiest; the first and only place he had felt at home.” Harry felt slightly uncomfortable at these words, for this was exactly how he felt about Hogwarts too.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 431)

Tom's first choice was to be a professor. I think Dumbledore is pretty spot-on on the first reason why Tom wanted to stay at Hogwarts. I already mentioned in my previous post, how Tom loves Hogwarts. Hogwarts is the only place he ever called home. He loved it so much that he attached his soul to items representing the school (the founders' artifacts).

And Harry is right to feel the way he does. Tom is similar to him in this regard.

The other two reasons Dumbledore gives in this scene for Tom's desire to become a teacher are:

2. Tom wants to unravel the mysteries of the ancient magic of Hogwarts that he hasn't resolved yet.

3. As a recruiting ground for future Death Eaters.

I think the second idea has some merit. Tom is definitely an academic, as I mentioned in my previous posts. He'd want to study and learn everything about magic and Hogwarts and would only be satisfied once he knew everything. I think his love of academics and magic is another major reason for his desire to teach. Dumbledore doesn't mention it, but Tom loves magic, as in just magic. It's what made him special, what gave him power and control when he had none. It's what garnered him pride and attention. His magical academic accomplishments are something Tom takes great pride in. "magic is might" in his words, after all.

The third one I believe is completely false. We have nothing but Dumbledore's words to support the existence of the Knights of Walpurgis (proto-Death Eaters followers of Tom when he was in school). We know Tom had people he considered friends and who he (diary Tom) says already called him by the title Voldemort, but we don't really have any other information about them and if there was an actual organization.

Also, from how uninvolved Voldemort was in both wars I find it hard to believe he'd bother applying for a job to raise an army. He didn't take over the ministry when he did have an army, so I don't think this is something he was actually after, at least not at this time. He didn't really make an effort to create an army for himself in these years after graduation, because he could have, even working at Borgin and Burkes, and yet he didn't. Which means this wasn't one of his goals here.

Customer Service

“So Voldemort went off to Borgin and Burkes, and all the staff who had admired him said what a waste it was, a brilliant young wizard like that, working in a shop. However, Voldemort was no mere assistant. Polite and handsome and clever, he was soon given particular jobs of the type that only exist in a place like Borgin and Burkes, which specializes, as you know, Harry, in objects with unusual and powerful properties. Voldemort was sent to persuade people to part with their treasures for sale by the partners, and he was, by all accounts, unusually gifted at doing this.”

(Half-Blood Prince, pages 432-433 )

So, not being able to secure the teaching position Tom goes to Borgin and Burkes. Now, I think Dumbledore isn't accurate on why Tom chose to work there.

First, I mentioned why he turned down the ministry positions, Tom isn't interested in being low on the ministry ladder and climbing it slowly. Dumbledore mentions himself how Tom wasn't a mare assistant. He was in touch with powerful clients and had access to priceless magical books and artifacts he probably found fascinating. I bet all the time he wasn't with clients he was studying the magic he could in the shop and the things in its collection.

This position gave him a lot of freedom in who he talked to and how he got these treasures. His boss clearly didn't care as long as there were results, which is something I think Tom would like, having complete control over his life and work. It's the kind of job that would give him plenty of time to pursue his own studies should he wish to do so as well.

I don't think Tom suffered in this job. I called it Customer Service mostly as a joke, I don't believe Tom often worked retail behind the counter at the shop. Dumbledore mentions he mostly procured treasures (and also studied them, in my opinion) rather than handle the customers at the shop. I think Tom enjoyed it well enough, I don't think he'd have remained there 10 years otherwise.

These 10 years at Borgin and Burkes ended with him going to Hepzibah Smith and I want to talk about this scene a bit:

She opened the lid. Harry edged forward a little to get a better view and saw what looked like a small golden cup with two finely wrought handles. “I wonder whether you know what it is, Tom? Pick it up, have a good look!” whispered Hepzibah, and Voldemort stretched out a long-fingered hand and lifted the cup by one handle out of its snug silken wrappings. Harry thought he saw a red gleam in his dark eyes. His greedy expression was curiously mirrored on Hepzibah’s face, except that her tiny eyes were fixed upon Voldemort’s handsome features.

...

She hooked the cup back off Voldemort’s long forefinger and restored it gently to its box, too intent upon settling it carefully back into position to notice the shadow that crossed Voldemort’s face as the cup was taken away.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 436)

As I mentioned in the past Tom is sentimental, and there is nothing he is more sentimental about than Hogwarts and his family legacy. The first place he called home and something he thought he could be proud of. Both signs of his magic — what always made him special. His sentimentality is very tied in with his ego.

This is Hufflepuff's cup, a remnant from a Hogwarts founder. It's rare, special, and magical and is a symbol of home for Tom, and so he wants it. And Tom likes getting what he wants when he wants it.

She slid back the fine filigree clasp and flipped open the box. There upon the smooth crimson velvet lay a heavy golden locket. Voldemort reached out his hand, without invitation this time, and held it up to the light, staring at it. “Slytherin’s mark,” he said quietly, as the light played upon an ornate, serpentine S. “That’s right!” said Hepzibah, delighted, apparently, at the sight of Voldemort gazing at her locket, transfixed. “I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value —” There was no mistaking it this time: Voldemort’s eyes flashed scarlet at the words, and Harry saw his knuckles whiten on the locket’s chain.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 437)

With the locket, Tom's reaction is even more obvious. It makes sense, it's not just a symbol of home, but of the family legacy he should've been able to be proud of and yet, couldn't.

You see, Tom and his family is an interesting dynamic. Like, how he feels about them is interesting.

When he found out who his family was he went to look for them. I don't think Tom searched out his relatives to kill them. Harry describes him being disappointed in the state of the Gaunt house and Morfin:

“You speak it?” “Yes, I speak it,” said Riddle. He moved forward into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemort’s complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment. “Where is Marvolo?” he asked. “Dead,” said the other. “Died years ago, didn’t he?” Riddle frowned.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 364)

I think, back then, when he was 16, Tom had hoped he'd find a family and a legacy. He only attacked Morfin after he learned his father left his mother when she was pregnant and that no one wanted him. I think he had hope back then, and it was squashed completely.

The thing is, up to that point, he probably took great pride in speaking Parseltongue and being the Heir of Slytherin at Hogwarts. Then he met Morfin and all that pride turned to shame, emberessement, and burning hatred. But the pride, the sentimentality towards a legacy that could've been remained.

By the time we see him with Hepzibah Smith, Tom has complicated feelings about Slytherin's legacy. It's something that won him friends and favors in Slytherin's house, it symbolized how special and powerful he was. But he was also ashamed and disappointed in them, the way none of them seemed to really love him and they all abandoned him. I think he blamed his mother for not surviving. After all, he was sure she couldn't have been the witch between his parents because of how weak she was, because of how she died.

I just find this dichotomy, of Tom wearing her legacy — Slytherin's legacy — proudly as part of the identity he fashioned for himself but being ashamed of the weakness of all his relatives fascinating.

Even in the above scene with the locket, the way he is so desperate to keep hold of it at the age of 29-30 shows this dichotomy. His desperation for a family and a connection he never had, he is still desperate to feel connected to his legacy, even when he hates all of his relatives.

“Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene,” said Dumbledore, resuming his seat and indicating that Harry should do the same. “Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress’s evening cocoa by accident.” “No way!” said Harry angrily. “I see we are of one mind,” said Dumbledore. “Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death —” “Hokey confessed?” “She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison,” said Dumbledore. “It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused —”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 438)

But before they [Hepzibah’s family] were sure beyond doubt that the cup and the locket were both gone, the assistant who had worked at Borgin and Burkes, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so regularly and charmed her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea where he had gone; they were as surprised as anyone at his disappearance. And that was the last that was seen or heard of Tom Riddle for a very long time

(Half-Blood Prince, page 439)

Then, he kills Hepzibah and steals the locket and the cup. The cup was made into a Horcrux using Hepzibah’s death and we know he took it with him (along with the locket) when he went traveling the world for the next 10 years. This is important because, in this next section, I want to note something important I noticed regarding Tom's Horcruxes — or more specifically their hiding locations.

Tom's World Tour

Ten years separates Hokey’s memory and this one, ten years during which we can only guess at what Lord Voldemort was doing. . . .” Harry got to his feet once more as Dumbledore emptied the last memory into the Pensieve. “Whose memory is it?” he asked. “Mine,” said Dumbledore.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 440)

Like Dumbledore says, we have little to no information regarding these 10 years of Voldemort's life I like to refer to as his world tour. All we know from this period in his life is that he made 2 new Horcruxes — the locket and the diadem.

To the Dark Lord, I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. R.A.B.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 609)

We know he killed a "muggle tramp" to create the locket Horcrux at some point between 1956 and 1966 in an unknown location outside Britain.

“And . . . and the diadem?” “It remained where I had hidden it when I heard the Baron blundering through the forest toward me. Concealed inside a hollow tree.” “A hollow tree?” repeated Harry. “What tree? Where was this?” “A forest in Albania. A lonely place I thought was far beyond my mother’s reach.” “Albania,” repeated Harry. Sense was emerging miraculously from confusion, and now he understood why she was telling him what she had denied Dumbledore and Flitwick. “You’ve already told someone this story, haven’t you? Another student?” She closed her eyes and nodded. “I had . . . no idea. . . . He was . . . flattering. He seemed to . . . to understand . . . to sympathize . . . . ”

(Deathly Hollows, page 522)

The second is the diadem that was made into a Horcrux in a forest in Albania by killing an "Albanian Pheasant" at an unknown time between 1956 and 1966.

What I wanted to note about these Horcruxes and his world tour is actually quite simple. We know from Deathly Hollows all of Voldemort's Horcruxes were hidden in Britain, that's why Harry, Ron, and Hermione could track them down as they did.

"So?" you might be asking.

Well, I just described Voldemort having five Horcruxes (diary, ring, cup, locket, diadem) with him, on his person, when he traveled the world. He made the last two abroad, and the others weren't hidden yet since he didn't meet Lucious Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange to give them the diary and cup yet and he was described wearing the Gaunt ring. So, get this, Tom travels the world, outside Britain, including an Albanian forest where Ravenclaw's diadem remained hidden for centuries without anyone locating it, and he thought, the best place to hide his Horcruxes was in relatively accessible places in Britain that are way less well hidden? Places other people know of and could go to?

No, I'm not convinced.

This is just so weird to me, I mean, he could've made the Diadem Horcrux and then left it where he found it, and no one would've been able to track it down. But no, instead he brought it back to Britain to place it at Hogwarts.

Why?

Well, he is sentimental, about Hogwarts and Britain as a whole. Think about where he hid his Horcruxes:

The Diary - was given to Lucious, the son of Abraxas Malfoy who went to school with Tom. Tom was probably fond enough of Abraxes to hand Lucious the diary, although without telling him what it was.

The Ring - he hid in the Gaunt Shack, in the place his mother grew up, the last place his magical relatives lived. With all his shame and disappointment in them, he still felt a desire for what they represented.

The Cup - he gave to Bellatrix Lestrange to hide. I think he did care about Bellatrix, she seemed to know what the cup was, that it held his soul, and when she died:

Bellatrix’s gloating smile froze, her eyes began to bulge: For the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared, and Voldemort screamed

(Deathly Hollows, page 621)

Voldemort clearly cares about her, we see he reacts emotionally to her death in a way he doesn't react to most other deaths.

The Locket - he placed in a cave dedicated to his own magical might. A place he made into an undead experiment, with protections of his design and a potion he invented. And where did he place this cave of wonders? In the same cave he scared two children from the orphanage with his magic. This is a place dedicated to what made him special, what made him better (in his mind).

The Diadem - He placed it at Hogwarts, the first and only place he ever thought of as a home.

Then he didn't really hide Harry or Nagini.

But all these locations reek of sentimentality and emotional attachment, even fondness to people. This is the main reason I call bull on Dumbledore's statement of Tom being incapable of love. I think he is capable of it, it's just very rare for him. He doesn't trust easily and keeps everyone at a distance (even Bellatrix who doesn't know he's a half-blood), so of course he doesn't have anyone close. But it's not that he never wanted a connection. He did, was actually quite desperate for it.

The other thing that's curious about all these hiding locations is that they are all accessible. Not necessarily easy to get to, but the trio showed it was possible to reach all of them. And that's a bizarre choice, because, why wouldn't he drop a Horcrux down the marina trench? Why wouldn't he leave the Diadem where it hadn't been found in centuries?

Because he doesn't want them to be impossible to find.

Tom is smart. He's one of the best students to ever make their way through Hogwarts. I'm sure if he wanted to make his Horcruxes inaccessible, he could have. After all, he made up the spells protecting the locket in the cave, he could've made a ward that wouldn't let anyone but him inside, but no, he made the cave a game. Something solvable, it isn't easy, but it is possible.

This tells me that one of Dumbledore's assumptions about Tom is wrong at its core. Tom didn't want to die when he started making Horcruxes, but I don't think he intended to live forever. Someone who wants to live forever wouldn't make it this easy to access their failsafe to immortality, they would drop the Horcrux down the Mariana Trench, or hide it in a vault under wards that no one could access, not even themselves. But that isn't what Tom did.

Conclusions

Tom is incredibly sentimental and is capable of feeling love and attachment to places, people, and ideas. He does, he loves magic and Hogwarts. He has complicated feelings regarding his family and Slytherin's legacy and he cares about Bellatrix (and Nagini).

He wanted to teach not to raise an army to start a war, but because he truly is an academic who loves magic.

He had no interest in working at the ministry as that would limit his freedom and control. He is prideful and ambitious and isn't willing to be at the bottom of the ladder.

And most interestingly, he never actually wanted to live forever. He just wanted to ensure he'd live as long as he wanted to, but not forever.

#harry potter thoughts #harry potter #harry potter theory #hp theory #wizarding world #hollowedtheory #overthinking #hp #lord voldemort #voldemort #tom riddle #tom marvolo riddle #voldemort analysis #hogwarts #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #slytherin #horcruxes #horcrux #borgin and burkes

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tomriddleshoe · 8 months

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Hc that Tom was great with comforting children in the orphanage. He'd calm them down by speaking in Parseltongue or ignore them all together whilst the bombs showered around them. When Lestrange informed Tom that he'll be Rodolphus' godfather, he (begrudgingly) accepted.

Sometimes, when Lestrange's wife is in France and he has work to attend to, he drops Rodolphus off at Borgin & Burkes. Tom would threaten to crucio him, but he'd disappear before Tom could draw his wand. When Rodolphus rocked Delphini in his arms, he thought of how Uncle Tom used to hiss incorrigible lullabies to him as well. He'd sob quietly when the intelligent brown eyes of his master looked up adoringly at him, and the black curls of his wife tickled his arms.

#tom riddle #rodolphus lestrange #idk it came to me in a dream #bellatrix lestrange #tmr #lestrange #hp #delphini riddle #cursed child #knights of walpurgis #borgin and burkes

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mercer-ad-mortem · 1 month

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Via

#dark aesthetic #witchcore #oddities #odditycollector #oddcore #dark fantasy art #creepy stuff #dark fairycore #borgin and burkes #specimen

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jlhynde-insanitybrilliance · 1 year

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Tom (to diarycrux): Hepzibah Smith came into Borgin and Burke’s today and was all like, “Oh, I’m so sorry you have to work on your birthday.” I’m thinking I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t bring your corpulent pudgy arse in here on New Years Eve. If you just kept your hefty posterior planted in your own home so your house elf can strategically kill you with artisanal French macaroons then Mr. Borgin would’ve closed the shop and I could’ve been somewhere else far away from you.

Diarycrux: But didn’t Hepzibah give us a gift this year?

Tom: She did.

Diarycrux: And aren’t those gifts usually expensive? Personally, I don’t see why you’re whining about her. It sounds like she treats us like a favored nephew.

Tom: Oh no. Not a nephew. Hepzibah wants us to be her sugar baby.

Diarycrux:

#tom riddle #horcrux #diarycrux #hp fandom #borgin and burkes #hepzibah #I believe there was more than one convo like this with the diary #baby dark lord working customer service will never not be funny

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jasjfernsworth · 1 year

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@regulusblacx + Jasper

January 18th, 1982

Borgin & Burke's, Knockturn Alley

Jasper didn't strictly enjoy dallying in Knockturn Alley. However, not everyone who dallied there was so bad. The reputation of the district was in shambles and for good reason, of course. However, Jasper was always fond of the notion- and occasional truth- that not all who were different were evil or of ill intent.

And so it was that Jasper was here at Borgin & Burke's. While he liked the wares it had to offer for their rarity and alchemical values, there was something- someone- more valuable inside. It hadn't been too long since Jasper has started colluding with the Order, but it was from this very shop that the proprietor's apprentice, once a classmate, would hand off important notes. Jasper often ferried small items or notes to other members of the Order from here, as the apprentice was a spy for the Dark Lord himself.

The bell rang faintly, in a minor tone, as Jasper entered, dusty tweed jacket and his favorite weathered green tie. He was no longer nervous coming into this shop, no longer afraid of his reputation should anyone he know see him coming or going. The only person he cared about in the room was Regulus Black, the apprentice. Jasper began to browse the featured new items, searching for any seasonal or interesting items that might help with his research. His mind wandered.

Regulus Black. Once, Jasper had admired him from afar, an accomplished Slytherin student with a dark, broody attraction. Yes, indeed, Jasper had once fancied Black, back when he was first discovering that men were his interests, not women. He had been deeply disappointed to hear he had joined the Dark Lord, but that was around the time Jasper was going through his own griefs.

Ah, but what a joy to see Regulus now! Helping the order in his own way. Jasper was always glad to see him now at his visits, and admired him in a wholly new way from when he was a boy. Regulus was brave, a man who was doing his best to correct his mistakes and the mistakes of others.

Plucking a bundle of bowtruckle bait and a small tome of Werewolves of Poland from the featured item shelf, Jasper proceeded to the counter, hoping to see the familiar face of Regulus.

"I don't suppose you have the latest edition of Dark Creatures Quarterly?"

#jasper001 #regulus #black #borgin and burkes #regulusblacx

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luciusmalfoy-aesthetic · 10 months

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#borgin and burkes #slytherin #Lucius malfoy #Draco malfoy #Lucius malfoy aesthetic

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sarahg170194 · 1 year

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Borgin and Burkes

May 6 2018

sarahg170194

#Knockturn Alley #The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley #Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley #Diagon Alley #The Wizarding World of Harry Potter #Wizarding World of Harry Potter #Borgin and Burkes #Universal Orlando Resort Photo #Universal Orlando Photo #Universal Orlando Resort Photography #Universal Orlando Resort #Universal Orlando #Universal Studios Florida #Universal Studios Florida Photography #Universal Studios Florida Photo #Orlando Photo #Orlando #Orlando Photography #Florida

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giggle-me-this · 1 year

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[ LOXLEY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY DISCORD ROUNDUP ]

Where: Borgin & Burkes, Knockturn Alley Who: Linden, Xiomara, Tierney, Nate When: 02 August 2020

@linden-flint

@xiomarawinters

@tierney-smudgling

Draped across the couch, Linden had their chin propped up against their hand as their elbow rested against the arm of the chair, eyes squinting in playful annoyance. “Make one more bone joke, I dare you. Or at least make it funny this time.”

Xiomara watched, amused as the wix who'd given Linden that awful pick-up like about where he'll put his bone walked away, rolling his eyes and muttering about wasted time. She sipped her sparkling water and wrinkled her nose, looking down in her cup. "Poor guy. Should let him down more gently next time. Watch him, he'll try her next." Xi indicated to the wix, who was leaning on a wall, cocking his head at another witch. "You waiting for someone or something?”

"Me." Tierney swanned onto the couch in an instant, back pillowed against Linden's stomach. She also sipped on sparkling water, albeit with much more joy than this blonde interloper. "Macaroni cheese still isn't ready, Linden. Who're you?”

Linden rolled their eyes at the news of food (or lack thereof), and reached around to grab T’s drink. “Oh, you don’t know who this is?” Linden asked with a smirk and scoff of a laugh, “Oh this is going to be fucking great.” They took a mouthful of water and then grimaced to find out it was sparkling. Gross.

Xi raised her brows, looking between the two. She sipped her drink. Shit, had it really been so long away from society that people forgot who she was? "Xi, nice to meet you. I'm here with Nate but he's off... somewhere." She shrugged and then looked the newcomer up and down, "Linden you have a friend! That must be so exciting for you.”

"Tierney." Tierney's eyes lit up, and she offered her freed hand out to shake, businesslike. The mention of Nate by name was the detail she'd needed to put a few pieces together. Tierney had personally filed that contract in duplicate. Hell! thought Tierney. Xi was totally boned. Linden would shit if they knew.

Tierney? Xi's eyes widened, reaching out to take the other's hand to shake. "Smudgling," she assumed, giving a knowing hum.

Tierney parried Xi's once-over by cutting her eyes to Linden's insouciant sprawl. "Oh, I know who she is, Linden," Tierney said, cheerfully. "If only by name and reputation.”

Tierney held onto Xi's hand for a second too long, turning their locked wrists over to get a clear eyeful of the skin on the back of Xi's hand. When she swept her thumb over it, the skin wavered, shimmering like a battered shield charm. Ha! So Xi'd broken the Pinnock contract already, had she? The cover-up charm was a nice temporary fix, but Xiomara would have to have glamour squirting day and night out of every orifice to keep a Smudgling-made Word as Bond sigil covered for long.

The journalist in Xi purred with contentment, and she was about to launch into a line of questioning about the notoriously exclusive security company when Linden launched into their bullshit.

Linden’s brow tugged to an arch as they watched the eyeball play between the two girls before Tierney’s gaze fell back to themselves. Humming, Linden nodded, “Darling Xiomara certainly has a reputation that precedes her; isn’t that right, Xi?” They managed to find some way to lean against Tierney and look over at Xi with the sole intent to be patronising in their eagerness to listen, and it just so involved finding a strand of dark black hair, twirling it about their index finger and tugging on it absentmindedly.

Xi let her hand drop, rolling her eyes and sipping her drink. She tousled her hair, raising her brows with a 'what's one to do?' kind of shrug at the mention of her reputation—before Linden mentioned the Ministry: “…Also, I heard you had a nice little Ministry visit recently... care to share? Or would you rather T here talk about just how much of your reputation she knows about first?”

Linden's family store was uncomfortably close to the alley Mathis had... Greeted Xi in, far too close to the Burkes’ shop where she'd been arrested. It rattled her.

Ruma, who was standing in the hall, met her gaze. Xi swallowed, hand clenching around her plastic cup as she finished the last of it. "Well, you know me. Anything to chase a story. Speaking of—” her gaze shifted back to Tierney. "I'd love to pick your brain sometime. Document your family's triumphant return after that.. unfortunate incident years ago. Must've been so embarrassing! A security company having a break-in," Then to Linden, "And I bet you've got plenty to say about increased auror presence in Knockturn Alley. Tell me, are all those raids bad for business? But I suppose dark wizards wouldn't really care about your illegal trading—and that's who you mostly supply, right?”

"My family? But that's old news…” Tierney said, sidestepping casually so that she blocked Xi's eyeline to Linden. Sometimes it pissed Linden off when Tierney got all caveman and protective like that, but other times—it really, really didn't. Linden was weird like that. “…Like your social life, I've heard. Not out much anymore, are you.”

“Ugh—I take back every time I’ve ever claimed I would drink anything—this is inexcusable…” Nate said as he walked into the living room, staring into a plastic red cup as if it had personally insulted him. “…I assume you’re ready to get the fuck out of—?” He stopped abruptly as he actually looked up and noticed who Xiomara was shaking hands with.

Sharp little Tierney Smudgling looked a good bit older than Nate remembered, but he still recognized her instantaneously. Pages and pages of contracts with the suffocatingly airtight clauses dangled beneath the Smudgling insignia like a baby over a well, bright red blood pressed in unsightly smears across those goddamn sigils—hundreds of them, thousands.

Nate’s molars ground together inside his mouth as years of associated memories flashed through his mind and he stared at Tierney-fucking-Smudgling. Of course, of course that’s what this was; of course Nate’s father, that evil fucking cunt would have no qualms about using a Smudgling Word As Bond on his own fucking son. It was honestly laughable how it had taken Nate so long to piece it together.

And yet, remarkably, being face-to-face with someone who was a mere several degrees removed from Nate’s father himself, caused some dormant instincts to twitch within him and rise to the surface, like some wretched creature that had been kicked into submission and had since lied in wait—the ghost of the old Nathaniel Pinnock of Giggle Water, Inc., rising from the ashes where Nate had tried to snuff it out.

Nate stepped into his old persona like a well-worn pair of shoes, striding cooly to Xiomara’s side and looking down on Tierney to say, impassively and just loud enough to be overheard, “Smudgling. Been a while. Xi, why don’t you go find Ruma and tell her we’re ready to go?”

Nathaniel Pinnock was taller than Tierney remembered. He got way too close, in the way men did when they expected you to back down. She could see straight up his nose.

Fat chance she’d be intimidated by a gangly has-been holding a red plastic cup. “I’m a Smudgling-Gunne, not that anyone ever seems to remember that,” she sighed, with some degree of resignation. The music was louder than her protest. Still, she protested.

“I was under the impression your people preferred it that way,” Nate replied, wry and pointed.

Because the Pinnocks had been in business with Smudgling Security for a long time, and the tedious act of whoring themselves out to the media, shoving their children’s names and faces down the public’s throat often enough that there was eventually no option but to become society darlings, sainted or scrutinized for so much as fucking sneezing—was a Pinnock family endeavor, alone. Clients of Smudgling valued the way the company handled sensitive matters with discretion—a practice that was seemingly maintained with the family’s internal affairs, too. Nate was old enough to remember when the incident at Smudgling Security transpired; what was told in confidence to clients, versus the obviously tailored story that was printed in the papers. Even more details that were likely kept from both, that only the Smudglings themselves were privy to.

No, Nate didn’t think what Tierney Smudgling-Gunne wanted was the infamy that he had. But she wasn’t a child anymore, either—she wanted the seat at the table that she’d inconveniently inherited to be recognized, she wanted to be respected as a player in the game. Nate looked at the way she held herself tall, chin up, unapologetic and full of youthful arrogance that hadn’t yet been strained by the burden of adulthood or scarred by bearing witness to harsh realities that would surely come for Tierney Smudgling-Gunne, the heir of the Smudgling legacy, in time. Nate wondered if that’s what Harriet would have looked like, if Nate had failed to survive their birth as he had been so close to doing—as it often felt like he was meant to—and it had instead been Harriet alone left to ascend as the prodigal heir to the empire, instead of him. It would have suited Harriet, Nate thought as he saw his sister’s likeness, the ghost of a life that could have been, reflected in Tierney Smudgling-Gunne.

And then, when it was just Nate and Tierney standing toe to toe like pieces on a Wizard’s Chess board, he hissed, “Look, whatever game he’s got your people playing—leave Xiomara out of it. She’s not the one who broke the agreement. I did.”

“Come on, we were just getting to know each other. Don’t be pissed at me. I didn’t break your contract. Or write it.” Tierney shrugged. “I just filed it. Most of those are just copy-and-tweak jobs, but yours had loads of batshit creative language in it.”

“Yes, well—my father is nothing if not creative when it comes to punishing his own…” Nate deflected, in a tone that was both indifferently bleak and unnervingly blithe, as was expected as part of the Nathaniel Pinnock Brand.

“Why in hell would you sign that? This will be ugly for you.”

“If you’re so familiar with these sorts of agreements, then I assume you’ll know all about how Pinnocks are fond of using leverage to…force the hand, that signs the contract.” As if he’d really had any choice, at the time—the luxury of reading through the fine print, of actually considering the consequences of signing that fucking thing when Xiomara was being dangled dangerously right in front of his face.

“You really are in the shit, aren’t you?” Tierney muttered.

Nate glanced over at Xi as she chatted with Ruma and he felt a swell of anger, of bitterness at what had been done to them, flare up within him, and the sigil on his hand seared orange in response. Sure, it was manageable now—kind of embarrassing to be literally branded as a fuck-up in a physical, and not just symbolic sense; but Nate was gone from High Society and it was just a stupid marking, so who cared? Plenty of people got far more humiliating things inked permanently to their skin when they were wasted, anyway.

Unless Tierney was delivering him a warning, and not just a taunt. How far was Nate’s father willing to go, to control him? How ugly were things going to get for him, for Xi, if Hamilton Pinnock III didn’t get what he wanted?

Nate frowned, and kept his voice low when he said, with a tone that was distinctly less of a performative drawl, less for show, “Hypothetically speaking, what sort of…persuasion would it take for you to—remind me, of the specifics of those ‘creative’ terms, again?”

Tierney tossed her bob in a way she thought probably looked aloof and grown up. “I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, Nate: there’s not much you have to persuade me with at the moment. Your social capital’s all dried up.”

In truth, she hardly needed any more encouragement. All her memories were of seeing him at a distance, across rooms and years. He’d seemed even taller, actually, when she was small and the world towered over her. Now he was right here before her. It made her laugh, in the way she had to clench her abdomen to suppress or she’d never stop, and that was enough.

Nate shrugged at the insult with indifference, the thought of engaging in a verbal Showing of Arms with a teenager—the ones he’d sought out for fun when he was a pompous little asshole at Tierney’s age—holding so little appeal to Nate at the moment that he just felt tired thinking about it. He felt Xiomara’s eyes on him, again, and he glanced her way in time to see her mouth at him pointedly, ‘what the fuck?’ and then jerk her head in the direction of the door to say, ‘let’s fucking GO.’

Well, this seemed like a waste of time, anyway, Nate thought as he made to give a curt have a nice fucking life to Tierney Smudgling-Gunne.

But then she did something totally weird and unexpected, and offered him a cordial gesture. Ugh, it was almost fucking friendly…

Tierney took a tiny, prim sip of her sparkling water, and then threw Nate his lifeline with all the grace of tossing a losing duelist a wink after a match. I did it. I did it when you couldn’t. “But hey! It might not be that way forever. One day you’ll get back on your feet, champ, and I might need a friend. A hedge friend. How about we say—you owe me a favor?” She held out her pinkie.

Nate stared at the pinky she proffered—a pinky, seriously?—with unveiled suspicion, waiting for her to drop into the gotcha! part of this charade. But she just stood there, hand out, waiting.

Nate had to admit that he was mildly impressed, that someone of Tierney’s age and social status even knew what a hedge witch was. And something about the sheer audacity that glimmered boldly in her eyes, the irony of the heir to Smudgling Security—known across the world for crafting brass-bound magical contracts—offering to pinky swear him her tentative alliance…it made Nate smirk with genuine amusement, getting under his skin in a way that was truly rare. It reminded him, again, of Harriet.

“You are nothing like I expected you to be, Tierney…” Nate said, feeling absurd as he reached out the pinky of the hand that did not bear the Smudgling Sigil, and fleetingly touched the end of it to Tierney’s before dropping his hand back down.

He took one more sip of his drink, made a face, rolled his shoulders. Then said offhandedly, “So do you have like…a business card, then, or something? A fucking—cell phone number, I guess?” He made yet another averse facial expression as the words left his tongue.

“Yes, I have a fucking phone number,” Tierney imitated, taking gleefully great pains to botch Nate’s accent. She unholstered her wand and spelled her digits onto the side of his cup with a flourish, snorting at his pinched and pitiful expression.

“There you go, grandpa. Call me!” As she turned away she rolled her eyes at Linden, all Christ what a fuckin gobshite!, and they fell back together on the sofa with smirks and barely suppressed snickers, looking like the world’s most horrid, insipid schoolgirls gearing up to burst into mean laughter and take the piss once you were out of earshot. Which—they were!

#discord #p: tierney #p: xiomara #p: linden #august 2020 #ruma #alcohol cw #aaaand i think that's officially the last of the outstanding discord roundups!#closing our loops we love to see it #borgin and burkes #knockturn alley

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the-hobgoblins · 1 year

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[ LOXLEY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY DISCORD ROUNDUP ]

Where: Borgin & Burkes, Knockturn Alley Who: Oz & Pax When: 02 August 2020

@paxton-aeterna

Oz was standing in his bedroom adjusting his eyeliner in front of an absurd gilded mirror on the wall (which, no joke, looked like it could come alive at any moment and transport your reflection to the Phantom's underground lair) when he noticed someone enter and grinned. "Oh goodie! Did ya fetch one a them for me?" He nodded toward the drinks in the person's hands.

“Hi.” Pax sloshed a little drink on the sleeve of his dusty blue button-up. He'd picked the flannel because it was warm and soft and invited cuddling, which he hoped to cash in on later in the evening when people started to go horizontal, and also because blue was steadily becoming his new favorite color these days. With a little smile, he raised a glass from the doorway. “The family’s apple pie moonshine. I thought—we haven’t really had a chance to talk since we met, have we.”

Oz smirked, and it was near-reverential in its familial resemblance. “‘Family moonshine’ been known to loosen some tongues, has it?” Spindly legs in shiny patent leather leggings decreased the spatial gap between them tenfold with one wide, deliberate step. He took the proffered cup gratefully, letting the fleeting skin-contact linger; Maeko certainly hadn’t told him not to, so why wouldn’t he?

Oz took a hefty, blindly-trusting swig, and hummed. It was good! Sweet. “Nothin' like a nice ’n sexy talk at a party…” he teased, but his smile was encouraging. He flopped sideways onto the hap-hazardously-made bed, his legs from the shins-down hanging off it, somehow managing not to spill. “…fire away!”

Paxton, feeling a little warm, unbuttoned his flannel to reveal a too-shrunk undershirt and winking cubic zirconia in his navel. After a moment’s consideration, he folded cross-legged onto the bed facing Oz. Maeko had explained him. But Paxton hadn’t stopped pondering the question of Oz’s palms. He wanted to hear Oz talk about himself. “Where’d you come from?” Pax asked, leaning on his own knees. It was an open-ended sort of question, so classically Paxton.

“Now I can’t possibly believe the accent doesn’t give me away…” Oz drawled, knowing perfectly well that it did, and that this wasn’t the answer Paxton was looking for. Oz wasn’t intending on being withholding, either, but it did give him a minute to think, take a swig of his drink. His eye caught on a flashing rainbow glint of bling at Paxton’s navel as Oz’s gaze traversed up the length of the body sat beside him; it would be so easy to reach out and touch, distract, deflect—the unbuttoned flannel was almost an invitation.

That was Oz’s instinct, so much like his half-sister’s save the paths that brought them here, to these unexpected moments of vulnerability and the choice of who to show them to. If there was one thing Oz had observed in the time he’d settled firmly into Maeko’s life, it’s that Maeko had many acquaintances; she was enigmatic and well-liked. But she only had a handful of her people. Paxton was one of them.

Oz took a breath. He reached out and traced a finger around the metal piercing Paxton’s skin—because Oz was a twenty-three-year old with a mostly-developed brain and he could multitask, thank you very much—while he looked up into the pretty pale blue of Pax’s eyes, sheltered by long blonde lashes, hovered above him.

Paxton grinned. “Right. Well, maybe I jus’ want to hear more of i—” A light brush against his abdomen. Pax paused in surprise. He looked down at Oz pointedly, just shy of being shy, wondering if in the low light Oz could see the heat Pax felt spreading across his face.

“You’ve been around the safehouse in Putney here 'n there now, haven’t ya? Enough to know a bit about what hedges’re like?”

Pax took a long, slow drink while he tried to slow the ratcheting of his heartbeat. “Um,” he said, slowly. “Somewhat I do. You’re all—very interesting. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Why?”

Oz smirked as he met Paxton’s look, bemused. “Ha—‘interestin’ is a nice word for it…” People from Mae’s world tended to look down on the safehouse scene—the ones that actually knew it existed, that is. But Oz suspected Pax wasn’t like that.

With mild concern, Paxton noticed his drink was empty. He gestured uselessly around with the empty glass for a bit before leaning over to put it on the floor. When he turned back to Oz, he felt—like he couldn’t decide how to sit now. He didn’t know where to look. Maeko is laughing at me somewhere, Paxton thought, horribly, before settling on lying down next to Oz and looking politely at the ceiling while he listened.

Oz rested his cheek in his palm, elbow propped up on the mattress while he laid on his side, watching Paxton shift all his long lovely gangly limbs into a more relaxed position, obviously just a little bit flustered. It was, unfortunately, entirely delectable.

He tried to divert his thoughts elsewhere. “Couple reasons…” he began, dragging the pad of a finger around the rim of his glass, the bottom of which rested with a slight indent on the mattress between them. “…firstly—if ya’ve heard one hedge’s story, ya might’as well’ve heard ‘em all…” Oz’s eyes, ringed in a dark bronze liner, looked sad at the truth of this statement, but he smiled lightly anyway.

He drained the rest of his drink and, following Pax’s example, set it down before returning to his lounging position, this time on his stomach with his chin in both hands. “…but no point’n dwellin’ on all that. I mainly asked ‘cause it’s good ya have some context, for what a safehouse can be like...see, the one I learned at, back home? It—wasn’t quite like that, not really, it was...Harsher conditions, ya know? More ta prove, more ta lose…” The grin Oz cracked here looked like a wince and he scratched at the back of his neck. “…does this all sound loony, or am I makin’ any sense?”

“I’ve got you. So you left them—left Ireland?" Paxton guessed. He shrugged a little, as though to express that Oz didn't have to break the whole tale of why if he didn't really want to.

Oz smiled gratefully at the reprieve he was given from rehashing some of the more unpleasant details. This man was, fuck—kind. Kinder than Oz had been conditioned to believe he deserved. “Exactly!” he agreed, propping up on his elbows. “…change a scenery, change a companions—plus, I couldn’t really afford the safehouse rent over there anymore…”

“And then—the courtroom. An' then Maeko let you in.” There was no mention of any parents. And through experience with Maeko, Pax had learned that if there was no mention, it was for a good reason. He decided not to ask. He also didn’t ask why Oz wasn’t at Hogwarts. He knew enough now to wonder if asking a hedge witch something like that would be in poor taste.

There was a rolled joint on the bedside table and Oz stretched out a long arm to grab it and draw it to his mouth. He gave a eureka! snap, which served also to spark the end of the joint, and then he said, “Now that is a story! Ya know when I first showed up here—it was a few days before Christmas—Mae told me flat out I could stay through the New Year an’ that’s it…”

Paxton didn’t ask about a lot of things. It had been years, but he remembered what the process had been like to befriend Maeko—a lot of waiting for details to slip, of noting commentary passed off as sharp-edged jokes—and he wasn’t sure yet that this man wasn’t the same sort of creature. Instead Pax nodded to himself and stretched out a little more. His eyes darted between Oz’s face and the fringe of curls spilling onto his forehead. Fingertips itching, Pax began twirling a piece of his own hair, letting the silence hang comfortably.

Oz laughed good-naturedly and took a drag, fragrant smoke misting around them on the bed like a dream-haze, and then held out the joint toward Paxton before rolling over to lay on his back, drawing his arms up in sharp acute angles to rest his head in his hands. “…did she tell ya we smashed up the place proper? Guess that sounds odd but it was, I dunno—soothin’, in a way? For her. Therapeutic, or somethin’—an’ here I am still…” He fell into a comfortable silence, remembering.

"Well, I'm glad you picked here." Paxton’s fingers lightly touched Oz’s arm in reassurance. “S’not just her alone against the world anymore. Not so scared as when I knew her at school,” Pax murmured, hand hovering in the air between them as he debated with himself, then reached up further to brush his fingers through the curls on Oz’s forehead. Nerves thrummed in his belly.

Pax’s hesitant touch pulled Oz back to present—light, tickling. A butterfly kiss. Oz smirked, holding his position, but he glanced over at Pax and asked curiously, “Was she? Scared, I mean…I guess I’m havin’ trouble picturin’ it, is all. Mae always acts so tough an’—and clever…”

And there it was. The fingers gently raking through his hair did make him stutter like an idiot, but Oz hummed anyway and nuzzled into the touch like a cat.

Given permission, Paxton continued to idly investigate Oz’s hair, listening to him talk. Feeling its coarseness, winding his fingers around individual spirals, the tension drained from Paxton’s limbs as if he were the one being soothed. He half-lifted himself on an elbow to take his sweet time on three long, greedy drags, passing it back with a massive exhale from deep in his belly. “She was always that, too,” he breathed.

Pax’s head thudded softly back to the bed, coming to rest against Oz’s side beneath his raised arm. “I’d tell you about myself, but she’s prob’ly told it all already.”

“No, please, I’d love ta hear about you…Maeko paints her pictures of before with a real specific brush, ya see—plenty of colorful details but missing quite a bit a the art a things, I think…”

Pax thought about what Oz’d said for a while, and subsequently forgot that he was supposed to talk about himself then, but that was okay. The silence fell comfortably for a second time as they passed the joint back and forth, fingers brushing, and anyway Paxton was pretty comfortable, and Oz’s side was really warm. His room was kind of nice—although Pax didn’t really lift his head to see, but if he looked diagonally, just skimming over the top of Oz’s stomach, he could glimpse his knees and shoes in the enormous mirror sat against the wall. Along with some photographs tacked up, he noticed. Some of them moved and some of them didn’t. And if Pax looked down his chin past the foot of the bed he could see a pile of clothes on a chair in fabrics and textures that looked as if they’d be nice to touch.

The seams of the sides of their bodies seemed to zip closed the longer they were laid there, and Oz found it increasingly difficult not to just cut to the punchline and pull Paxton all the way on. Oz was the type of cuddly person who got needy for affection when it was readily given out—and Pax definitely gave physical affection away readily.

“I love my family,” Pax said aloud, suddenly, as if several minutes hadn’t passed by. “Still live with them. But I work here. You know that, though. At school I was alright with divination stuff, you know, cards and crystals and all that. But last Thursday I helped a mum whose husband is at Flourish and Blotts? She didn’t really know much about all that. She likes her muggle life. Loved a magical delivery, though. Little girl. Eight point five kilograms..”

They were talking with words again and Oz tried hard—like, very hard, okay!—to listen, and to be good. Because as much as he wanted to write this whole thing off as just A Pressing Matter to Take Up with His Dick, Oz had to quietly admit that this person was actually…fascinating. Charming, really. Oz wanted to unwrap the person that was Paxton Brady in a number of intriguing ways…Also, Maeko would surely eviscerate him if he acted in any way untoward, toward her Bestest Old Friend.

So—that was that, was it not? Oz’s fingers flexed from where they were curved behind the base of his skull, and he recrossed his legs—toward Pax, but only because one of them was falling asleep. Kinda.

Pax took another pensive drag, exhaling and shrugging, shouldering closer into Oz’s side. “An' I’m planning on getting another piercing soon. I’ve saved up, but I haven’t decided. Nipples or tongue, d’you think?”

Shit. Paxton Playing-Coy Brady decided to talk about his fucking, prospective piercings, for fuck’s sake, and—well. Oz had tried, right? He glanced down at where some strands of blonde hair were caught against his shirt, taking note of the way they rose and fell with his diaphragm.

Paxton tilted his head back a bit, just enough to meet Oz’s eyes. He wished he had more drink to offer Oz. He wished he’d brought the bottle into the room with them. Pax’s eyebrows drew together, little wrinkles forming between them and across his forehead as he thought about it, mildly dismayed. He’d have liked to stay there a while, and now at some point he’d have to leave to get more moonshine.

An invitation was an invitation was an invitation, and when Pax tilted his head back and caught him in that solar-beam inquisitive gaze, Oz failed to come up with a quippy innuendo to retort.

Instead he just said, “I…” and then inched downward—not far—to press his mouth against Paxton’s slightly-parted lips. He could taste the sweet-spice of the moonshine and chased more of it with the tip of his tongue, angling his body toward Paxton’s on the bed, with one elbow braced upright on the mattress, while the other hand reached out to rest momentarily on Pax’s hip before sweeping up the length of bare skin, fanning out to more fully feel, the tattoo on his palm pressed against warm flesh as if in greeting; HELLO. The tips of his fingers just barely reached past the hem of the crop.

When he pulled back, his lashes fluttered heavily, kiss-drunk, and Oz said, “Sorry, s’just—figured we were both thinkin’ it. But feel free ta tell me ta fuck off…” He flopped back onto his back, jostling the springs in the mattress, a warm-boozy feeling in his belly. Cheekily, he added, “…an’ I think the answer to your question depends on whether ya wanna give or receive the majority a the—ah. Associated sensations…”

Paxton didn’t tell Oz to fuck off, for starters. When Oz flopped back down beside him, making the bed squeak and jolt, Pax was just sort of shivering way too much, and his eyes were way too wide, and he had the look of someone who had been about half a million kilometers away before being propelled back to the present at light speed. The cheek of Oz’s tone made all of Pax’s breath leave his lungs in a rush, and his head spun, and he clumsily raked a hand through his own hair before he managed to get out, “Oh, go on.”

And then immediately, enthusiastically headbutted Oz’s shoulder while turning to drape himself against Oz's side.

One arm wound up wedged awkwardly underneath him. Pax could deal with that, no problem. He could deal with his arm falling asleep, because in shifting down to kiss him, the movement against the bedcovers beneath them had caused Oz’s shirt to hike up just a bit, exposing a good inch of skin just below where Pax’s other hand came to grip Oz’s flank and turn him so they were face-to-face. And that skin was begging to have fingers trail over it. Just begging.

Oz was very, very warm against him, and Paxton immediately set to work getting their legs helplessly tangled, Oz's entire body pressed against Pax, and hell—all that warm skin was now under his fingers, a small noise in Pax’s throat as he grinned and trailed them lightly over the small of Oz’s back, up a little further under the fabric of his shirt.

In fact, Pax proceeded to maneuver himself so physically close as if to actually burrow himself inside of Oz’s body by like—osmosis, or something. It was very fucking endearing, and Oz couldn’t help the playful smile that tugged at his cheeks as he nuzzled his nose against the patch of skin in the hollow of Paxton’s throat, breathing in the smell of him; a sultry trace of sweat, mixed with something floral and woodsy and bright—like those heavily-scented oils that came in tinctures, that hedges used to anoint candles and rainwater and body parts before spells. It was intoxicatingly heady and struck him with such disorienting deja vu, that Oz was inclined to open his mouth and run his tongue along the spot to better taste it.

He didn’t, though, because Paxton had fingers trailing up under his clothes, light and curious, and it didn’t tickle, exactly; it was more like nerve endings were alighting in the trails being traced, so that what started as a sort of laugh came out as a low, rumbling, encouraging hum.

All nerves had evaporated with the weed and the alcohol and the certainty of touch; this feeling, Pax knew what to do with. “Come on,” he said, being very sweet about it, bringing his hand to the back of Oz’s neck. Something thudded loudly on the floor above them, to muted cheers, and the ceiling shook slightly. “Kiss me again, then.”

Pax’s tone was sweet and cheeky and unexpectedly assured, and that was just—yeah, it was totally irresistible, there wasn’t any other word for it.

And Oz was happy to oblige. “Oh, darlin’…” he drawled, his tone delighted with just a hint of danger as he reached up and tugged lightly on a strand of blonde hair, before trailing a few fingers along the long angular line of Paxton’s jaw, tucking up just under his chin. Oz smirked. “…as ya wish.”

And then he did kiss him again, deeper this time, feeling really quite pleased with himself for managing to remember such a clever and, he assumed, contemporary Muggle film reference at a time like this (Piper had had them on an ‘Epic Quests and Fairy Tales’ kick lately for the residence’s collective Film Education Journey); and actually, now that he thought about it, Paxton was even somewhat reminiscent of Buttercup.

The feel of kissing, wet and soft, hot and fucking gorgeous, was like new every time. Paxton would never ever get used to it, and he didn't want to, either. He loved the way Oz’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, the dull chafe of his stubble against Pax’s chin, the way he had to pull away to take in a breath every so often, and the pleased noises he made when Paxton did something he liked. Nothing like kissing Maeko after all, Pax thought fuzzily, and then, horrified at his own brain, elected to turn it off.

Oz’s body trapped Paxton’s against the bed, hips rolling once and then pressing down over Pax’s at an angle as he moved. He pushed Pax’s already short crop top further up his chest, tugging his fingertips through the fine patch of dark hair that ran along Paxton’s sternum.

They rolled over somehow and Oz pressed Paxton into the mattress, his body a comforting weight bearing down. Pax loved doing that to others, and he usually did, loved to spread them out and kiss them at his own pace. This time, Paxton found himself abnormally free to just feel. He continued to trail his fingers up and down along Oz’s spine just to enjoy the little resulting shivers, and made happy, dirty noises into Oz’s mouth.

Oz’s stomach dragged against his as they shifted, and his hips canted against Pax’s crotch. "Ah–" Paxton tried to tell him, but he couldn't seem to stop kissing him long enough to make the words, so it came out as a moan, which was pretty much what he was trying to say anyway. "That’s–" Paxton gave up, let his head thunk back against the bed and closed his eyes, sliding a hand into Oz’s hair as he began his exploration under Paxton’s shirt. His top kind of got stuck under his armpits then, so he arched a little bit and wiggled until that was more comfortable, moving into Oz some more.

Morrigan had often told Oz that he was a slave to his own cavernous need, and that it made him weak. That he craved closeness so blatantly and desperately that he’d always give into it; it would blind his inhibitions like a drug habit he would never be able to kick. That he would burn himself all up—a smoldering wick wrapped in pliant, weeping wax—in his haste to pour himself into every pair of open hands he encountered.

And Oz liked to think, after all this time, that he had just a lick more common sense and self-control than all of that. But Christ if he wasn’t having a hard time remembering it right now, with Paxton Brady spread out like a piece of art on Oz’s bed beneath him, the wet way he kissed so languid and luxurious that it felt like decadence.

There was a dull thumping of music that could be heard distantly overhead, now, but the only sounds Oz could hear were the devastatingly pretty, breathy ones that were coming out of Paxton’s mouth. Oz wanted to spend hours pulling out every single one of those sinfully sweet sounds, trap them in a seashell like that tentacled sea witch from The Little Mermaid, just to hold it close and feel it thrumming between his palms.

He veered off to one side, tracing the shape of a half-remembered sigil on Pax’s peck, and then his hand caught on the peak of a nipple. He paused, hovering his hand there as he smiled against Paxton’s lips, and then used his other hand on the mattress to push himself up and off just a little, enough to talk. “Only one way ta know for sure about that piercing, ain’t there…?”

Oz stopped kissing him then, for some reason. Even though Pax chased after his mouth, he pulled away and started talking. “Wha–” Paxton said, somewhat stupidly. His body was informing him that it was not pleased with this stopping business.

And then Oz squeezed his fingers in an experimental pinch—not hard enough to hurt, but enough for Pax to feel it, to test sensitivity. “…how’s it feel?”

Pax didn’t know what to say. It was good—all of this was good, it was what he wanted, it was turning him on. Specifically, though, maybe the way Oz was touching him now was less good, but it was better than not having it, and he didn’t want Oz to stop—he just wasn’t so used to having all the attention on him, and no one had really tried this before, had they—

This whole thing was somehow different, this time, Paxton was realizing hazily. It felt like his whole body was hanging, suspended, waiting for whatever Oz would do next. Not unpleasant, but strange and unfamiliar. Paxton had kissed a lot of people. He wasn’t used to not knowing what he was doing, where they were going. It felt like a thought to explore in the morning, when he wasn’t so stoned.

“It’s good,” Paxton said, quickly, biting his lip. “But—it’s more like—” He leaned up until his face was buried in Oz’s neck and kissed him there, open-mouthed, so that he felt less vulnerable as he put his hand over Oz’s to guide him. “That,” he said, muffled and buried in the crook of his neck when Oz started rubbing little circles with his thumb instead, softer now, rolling a little bit, until Paxton sighed, “that.”

Paxton’s mouth opened over Oz’s pulse point and the heat of the sensation flickered low in his belly. The shift in the way Pax’s sensitive body responded to a slightly softer touch—more deliberate, less teasing—the way his breath ghosted warm and humid over Oz’s skin when he sighed, like fog over moonlit water…it was positively sublime.

Oz trailed his hand down the long line of Paxton’s side and traced those same circles with his thumb over Pax’s hipbone, dragging it right up against the denim hemline. He was going mad with how much he wanted to take Paxton Brady apart, inch by gorgeous inch; Oz needed to get his mouth on him, so sure that Pax would taste nectar-sweet on his tongue—

Mae’s best friend, her oldest friend. The one she nearly broke herself being at odds and apart from for so long… a needling voice reminded Oz’s in the back of his head as he trailed wet, hungry kisses along Pax’s jaw.

Kindly buzz the fuck off, he tried to quiet the voice, but it pressed on, chastising: …you really think she’d want her kindness repaid by you butting in on someone who’s hers?

Somehow Pax worked up the courage to reach a hand down so that he could feel it again, the hard line of Oz through his leggings, until Oz made a low noise above him. “Yeah?”

And Oz didn’t have a chance to contemplate his eminent guilt trip any further, because all at once Paxton’s hand was squeezing him lightly but purposefully over the very thin fabric of these dastardly leather leggings that he’d elected to wear, and all thoughts besides the warmth of Paxton Brady’s palm and the gentle curve of his fingers promptly exited Oz’s brain.

A choked-out noise climbed up his throat, before he managed to divert it into a humming affirmation: “Mmhmm…” He barely pressed his hips forward, further into the touch; a pulse of ambient magic rippled through the air, flickering the lights. Not what Oz was expecting, at all, but he sure as fuck wasn’t about to say no…

There was a sudden rush of warmth, like magic, like the feeling of a spell washing over him. Startled, Paxton ripped his mouth away from where he’d been molesting Oz’s jawline. But when he looked up, there was only Oz, and Oz’s blue, blue eyes. Something kicked hard in Paxton’s chest.

With a smirk, Oz rolled them back over again, sweeping an encouraging hand up the back of Paxton’s thigh, which was still all tangled up with his own legs.

And when they stopped moving again Pax was on top of Oz, hips fitted snugly to his. He leaned in for a sloppy, affectionate kiss to Oz’s cheek and pressed his thigh between Oz’s legs.

Then Oz said, “Howzabout you call the shots here, huh? Seems like ya wanna…”

“Anything you like,” Pax said, trying to be lighthearted about it, but it came out soft and serious.

This is happening, Pax thought, stunned. He’s letting me! Then it occurred to him that he wasn’t even sure what was supposed to happen next—what would it look like, if he made Oz come? If he even could? And if he did it wrong, if Oz didn’t like it—and most importantly—what would Oz even like?

Struggling to think through the haze—had they been kissing already for ten minutes? it could have been thirty? an hour?—Paxton considered what little he already knew about Oz, what he had learned in the last hour, Oz saying more to prove, more to lose. Paxton liked to think he had pretty good intuition, and his intuition told him Oz just needed to feel wanted.

So Paxton slid a hand around the back of Oz’s neck and anchored it in the curls on his nape, testing his grip as they kissed: if he tugged gently at Oz’s hair he could make him tilt his head back and hold it there, make his chest arch up, and leave damp spots and pink patches all over his neck while he enjoyed finding out what kind of little noises Oz would make here, or there.

Let it be stated for the record that this was all very fucking surprising.

It’s not like Oz would have tried to fool anyone into believing he was the type who could instinctively figure other people out, by any means. But Paxton Brady was a veritable puzzlebox, glorious in its perplexity. He wanted control of things, that much was clear. And Oz wasn’t picky about that sort of thing—in fact, he was rather well known for being adaptable, fitting himself into whatever mold was laid out before him, no questions asked. It’s what made him such a coveted tool in many-a honeypot that Morrigan had crafted over the years. He could—and would—be anyone, for anyone.

So yeah, Oz was more than happy to hand control over, wrapped up with a fucking bow, if that’s what Pax wanted. But in Oz’s experience, most people who enjoyed control were also controlling, and Paxton Brady was decidedly not that. Pax was unapologetically experimental, ravenous with curiosity and refreshingly lacking in a sense of higher agenda. For the first time in his life, Oz was actually kind of regretting the decision to forsake talking in favor of getting here.

Paxton shifted to adjust his newfound leverage, making himself comfortable, and pressed his hips down the way Oz had. “You feel so warm—” Paxton’s voice was rough and breathless. Talking was still too difficult.

As he moved against Oz he could feel his boxers sticking and sliding damp against him, and pressed tight against Oz like this it rubbed everywhere, dancing little sparks of sensation through all his nerves. Pax shivered again, made a little, involuntary sound. It was too good. And with a bit more soft maneuvering, he gently bullied Oz into spreading his legs so that he could fit between them.

And then he was keeping Oz’s mouth where he wanted him, bearing down on him warm and too eager and messy, leaving higher brain function behind. He felt like a bloody spaz. Any thought of what was supposed to happen went out the window, and he didn't intend to do anything on purpose. Everything was all muddled, sweet and hot and sudden and his body just reacted.

The simple, undeniable fact of this whole whirlwind ride was that Oz didn’t have any time or mental clarity to spare toward breaking things down rationally, or even to take amusement in the fact that he was essentially getting rubbed off through his clothes like a teenager in the back of someone’s car—which, under any other circumstances would have been an absolute gag—because every single time Paxton thrust himself against Oz’s erection in total fucking earnest, it sent sparkling trails of blinding colored light through Oz’s brain like fireworks whistling through the air, scattering every thought so that only a haze of heat and feeling remained.

It was just grinding from then on, really, just a slow push and pull but it made Pax’s breath stutter, made his back arch, made him jerk and push into the touch like he couldn't get enough of it. And Oz was still touching him. He could feel that smirk on his lips through the kisses, could feel how it grew when he opened his mouth to say something and moaned instead and that just made Oz press up a little harder, move a little faster.

Oz found his hips meeting the movement of Paxton’s, chasing friction like a drug fix—and in the same sense not thinking. The loose grip of a hand at Pax’s hip moved to press fingers into the sweet, soft divot of skin at the small of Pax’s back, sliding through a very fine dusting of sweat, feeling the long lines of muscle that moved beneath.

Every pass of his gentle fingers over Paxton’s back tipped him closer to the edge, and it didn’t help that Oz was nosing along his jaw, stopping to breathe into his ear, and doing better than Paxton at keeping that maddeningly wonderful pace. He opened his eyes, trying to regain some control, to get his mind to focus on something else than the heat and the angle and the way Oz was mouthing at Paxton’s neck and ear. It didn’t help, though, because when his eyes refocused, what he saw was yet more of Oz underneath him.

Pax made a sinful sound that made Oz thrum with want, and in the small space between their swollen lips he coaxed, encouraging, “Go on, that’s it…”

Paxton dragged Oz up into his arms as he came, hand still buried in the thick, curly mess of Oz’s hair. Pax gasped into his neck, shivering and hips chasing his orgasm, nose pressed into Oz’s temple and breath warm in his ear. Even muffled, he was still loud. He relished the warmth, the tightness of the hold he’d locked them into, and even the embarrassing, uncontrolled noises he made.

Paxton’s body seemed to melt over Oz as he found his release, seeping and sighing into every open space like water into soil until their edges blurred and blended. Pax shuddered with little sparks of post-coital pleasure, mewling out the most sincere and unself-conscious sounds, and it was the sort of sweet that could lay down roots with the power to spread and grow through the lightless crevices of your cracked and weather-worn heart, if you weren’t careful.

Pax’s head felt like it was full of soft and airy cotton, obscuring anything beyond the person in front of him and the sensory information that trickled in piece by piece. Pax slowly unclenched his fingers from Oz’s hair as he came back to himself, running his fingers down the knobs of Oz’s ribs shakily. Oz was all interesting angles and pointy limbs. Pax felt a rush of affection well up in him.

His fingers slid back up and locked in Oz’s hair again, as Pax pressed tiny kisses to the skin of his throat, feeling loose and pleased and warm in his soft blue flannel. He was flushed, ferociously, all the way to the ears and his chest, on the tops of his cheeks, and even at the corners of his eyes.

And Oz could have been content with just that honeyed innocence, to let it linger like drops of nectar on his tongue. But Paxton’s hands kept wandering, his mouth kept demanding; the lust coated heavily over everything else, the room thick with that heady, earthy musk, dragging Oz under like sweet, sticky sap.

His hand returned to Oz’s leggings, smoothing up over him again and then inside, breath hot on Oz’s lips as Pax leaned into him for a kiss. The taste of the moonshine and the joint were long gone. “I’ve never, uh, don’t laugh,” Pax mumbled, the faculties of speech slowly returning. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this good.

Oz didn't laugh—wouldn’t have dreamed of laughing—but he did smile with brimming affection in the bliss-haze of feeling. “Ya don’t have ta—” he tried to say, but Paxton’s fingers were already dipping beneath the waistband of Oz’s leggings and gripping him with purpose; Oz hardened in response, the words on his tongue splintering like fractals into a messy jumble of expletives that was lost into Paxton’s mouth.

Paxton closed his eyes for a moment, zoning out on the feel of his hand’s firm, sure grasp on Oz’s cock for real now. When he opened them again, Oz was watching him, moving into his hand with a heavy gaze.

Pax’s grip was solid but his hand was still, and it was with immense and—he thought—quite admirable restraint that Oz moved his hips, slow and controlled, to thrust up into Pax’s hand. The latter’s fingers twitched and he opened his eyes; they shone with curiosity and apprehension and wonder in the low light of Oz’s bedroom like glimmering subterranean pools.

Oz offered Pax an encouraging nod, a curl falling over his brow, and Paxton’s wrist started to move, taking pacing cues from the low thrums and stuttered breaths that hummed in Oz’s throat.

Until abruptly, he came undone all at once; a glittery wave of warmth shot up his spine and crashed over him, and Oz blurted out, “Ah, I’m—” with the barest trace of abashedness before the muscles in his abdomen were tightening and he was spilling all over Paxton’s long, lovely fingers and giddy laughter was bubbling up out of him.

And then it was Oz’s turn to melt into the mattress, fanning out all his limbs and feeling sunny and wrung-out and stoned; his legs below the knees wilted weightily over the edge of the bed like saturated leaves.

He whistled out a stream of air, quirking a brow to meet Pax’s inquisitive, indecipherable gaze. “That was nice…” Oz said, his smirk teasing but his tone sincere.

“Mm, s’nice.” Paxton pressed his forehead against Oz’s shoulder. It was a terrible challenge to not let himself float away—anchoring himself in the giddy, fluttery, childhood-crush buzz of feeling Oz’s legs still tangled up with his. “Haven’t felt that nice in. I dunno.” Patches of sweat were cooling inside his clothes, and his crotch was a sticky swamp. He couldn’t muster the energy to sit up.

“D’ya wanna stay? Lay here, for a bit, before venturing back—” Oz gestured a palm that read ‘GOODBYE’ through the air. “—out there?”

Pax yawned muzzily, perfectly content. “D’you want some of Katie’s macaroni cheese? I bet…I bet s'ready now…We should…” But it was impossible. Paxton breathed in against Oz’s hair, closed his eyes, and was gone.

#p: pax #discord #sex cw #it's actually SO wholesome tho i swear #drug use cw #alcohol cw #mention of birth cw #he's a midwife idk #august 2020 #borgin and burkes #knockturn alley

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