A walk (tag Julian) on Labyrinth Gardens

Charlie B-F-R

July 19, 2015 12:30 AM

A walk (tag Julian) by Charlie B-F-R

Charlie had arrived to Transfiguration just in time to find a huffy Professor Skies erasing a shakily written message from the board. He’d had time to read most of the last line though, and the gossip mill had kindly filled him in on what the rest had said. He knew for definite of two adopted children in the school. Or three, when he remembered John. He thought there were others - the Kijewski-Jareau family was practically its own soap opera, and he was sure someone had mentioned something about another of the younger boys. But there were only two that he really cared about, and he knew that the rumour couldn’t be about him. He had given it some thought - it was a bit of a coincidence that a rumour about adopted kids should appear so soon after one that was taunting him about his sexuality, and he wondered whether all of this was just someone trying to mess with him - but it really didn’t fit. He was perfectly happy to tell anyone who his mother was - her name was Emma Boxton - and was sure he had done on several occasions. The concept of ‘real’ also really didn’t fit because he’d not had any other mothers since. As for not telling her who he was anymore, the very obvious problem with that was that she had been dead for over a decade, although really the statement was just false - every school holiday, he and Henny went to visit his birth parents, to leave them some flowers, and he always told them his news. Alright, he was a slightly awkward and secretive teenager now, but he felt that if this was someone trying to get at him, they had got far too abstract, as he really didn’t understand their point. Besides which, there had been the initials in the garden. They may or may not have been the same culprit but he was leaning towards that being the case, and he couldn’t even think of his nearest friend or relative with either of those initials, so the odds were someone was trying to mess with a lot of people. And that ‘a lot of people’ might now include Julian.

To her credit, she hadn’t looked ruffled at the sight of the message, but then he hoped he had made a similarly good show over the rumour in the Cascade Hall. That made his decision harder though. If she had outwardly shown some emotion over it, he could very clearly and definitely approach her out of friendly concern. Whilst that was still his true motive, if Julian was determined not to show her feelings on the matter, then when did friendly concern cross the line into prying? He didn’t want to pry, not with Julian, and he most certainly did not want to open up a cathartic heart-to-heart where he was supposed to lay all his feelings bare as well.

Still, leaving the issue made him feel like a worse friend. At least, he thought it did. He supposed he had no true way of knowing how horrific he’d feel if the conversation went as badly as could possibly be imagined unless that actually happened. Praying that it didn’t, he had asked Julian to go for a walk with him in the gardens. It was a private place. A place they could talk, if she wanted. And Charlie was struck by how few of those there had been recently. He had still made time for Julian, he didn’t want her to become suspicious and he still wanted to be around her, but he had avoided alone time. Times where he might be tempted to do things, or where she might have a chance to say things. It had been an act of self-preservation but now he realised how effectively he had shut out Julian’s chances to tell him about her problems, should she have wanted to.

“Hi,” he smiled, as he met her, choosing a familiar path they had often trod together. “It’s been a while since we did this kind of thing,” he acknowledged, hoping that maybe that in itself seemed like a reasonable excuse for having requested to do so now, “How’s things?”

13 Charlie B-F-R A walk (tag Julian) 252 Charlie B-F-R 1 5

Julian Umland

July 20, 2015 12:34 PM

What could possibly go wrong? by Julian Umland

Julian had been a little surprised when Charlie asked her to go for a walk in the Gardens. Once she might not have found it so unusual, but they hadn’t really done anything like that for a while. Since she thought she had an idea what he might want to talk about, though, she wasn’t very concerned by the invitation. She had assumed for some time that the reason Charlie had been a little distant (besides, of course, the times when she was involved in so many things that she was the one to blame for them not spending as much time together as they might have) was that he’d found a nice-but-closeted boyfriend and was slipping off to see him during time they would have spent together when they were younger and imagined that the reason Charlie wanted to talk now was that the boyfriend had finally decided it was okay if Charlie told her about him.

Unless they were fighting, anyway, and he just needed to vent, but Julian chose to think that wasn't it. After the past few years, it was all too easy to imagine that anything at all out of the ordinary was a bad thing but doing so still wasn’t a good way to lead her life. Plus, she really didn’t think most people would tell a friend about a relationship only as a prelude to complaining about it unless doing so was just a way to work up the nerve to end the relationship. There was very little fixing a bad first impression and since she already worried that making a good one on anyone Charlie would date might be difficult, she knew it might cause problems if the first thing she wanted to do upon meeting Charlie’s significant other was punch him in the face because all she could really think about was that the first thing she'd ever found out about him was that he'd been mean to Charlie at some point.

He didn’t look like he was having problems with someone who’d deserve that treatment when they met up, though, which was good. Score one for optimism. Maybe….

“Busy,” she said of Things. “I am seriously starting to question the wisdom of keeping two clubs and library duties up on top of Potions and Transfiguration.” She only just stopped herself from biting her lip in frustration over mentioning Transfiguration. She had been doing everything in her power not to mention the subject to anyone since that…incident. She still didn’t know if John was silently judging her and didn’t want anyone else to start, from any direction. John had a problem with her admitting she had a biological mother, but Charlie, approaching the problem from a completely different perspective, might have a problem with her not being more accepting of Sallie and Richard. Not that he was usually the judgmental type, but…well, all of their positions were so different that they really weren't easy to compare one-to-one – Sallie and Richard had made a reasoned-out decision about what they thought would be Best For Everybody, John’s mother had made a long string of really bad decisions, most of them seemingly impulsive, which had ended with three legally fatherless kids and a prison sentence, and Charlie’s birth parents had died - but it was just one of those things which was so personal that it was easy to become…irrational...about the validity of one's own feelings. Knowing this, and knowing she probably had the least bad of the scenarios to deal with, was the only reason she hadn't said something she knew she'd regret to her brother yet. “I’m sorry if I’ve been abandoning you,” she continued, instinctively turning the subject to him to avoid what she didn’t want to talk about. “I’ll do better, I promise. How have you been keeping yourself?”

16 Julian Umland What could possibly go wrong? 254 Julian Umland 0 5

Charlie

July 22, 2015 4:52 AM

Random teenage boys might jump on you? by Charlie

“I know the feeling,” he nodded, when Julian questioned her sanity over her current workload, “Though I’m only doing clubs for fun, none of this silly madam president stuff,” he tutted. True, he had kept on three school subjects and was working on a portfolio in his spare time but Charlie tended not to be one to blow his own trumpet, unless he was attempting to enforce his expert opinion in fashionable matters, or was in a confrontation with someone who he felt was trying to belittle him. Julian knew him well enough to know what occupied his time; he didn’t need to brag with her.

“And it’s not your fault,” he assured her, when she worried over abandoning him. “I mean, it takes two to fail to tango. I’m sure I’ve been just as guilty.” In fact, he was sure he’d been actively avoiding and that the fault lay much more firmly with him, but he couldn’t quite confess that. Or at least, not yet…

“This term is such a pain in the backside, all round. I’ll be glad when it’s over,” he sighed. He had noticed Julian’s mention of Transfiguration but it hadn’t really given him the opportunity he needed. He was prepared for this to be awkward and clunky, that they might not sail in and out of the topic with the smoothest of segueways, but there were limits, and that went beyond them. How was he meant to use that? ‘Yeah Advanced Transfiguration is tough, between that latest assignment on the theory of vanishment and the random graffiti that seemed to attack adopted children. Real pain, huh? He just couldn’t do it.

13 Charlie Random teenage boys might jump on you? 252 Charlie 0 5

Julian

July 24, 2015 12:34 PM

They wouldn't dare with you here to protect me. by Julian

“No, you’re just working toward one of the most competitive career fields there is,” teased Julian, smiling, when Charlie disclaimed his own level of participation in school affairs. She didn’t have statistics on magical fashion design or anything like that but was pretty sure that it was a lot like professional sports, one of those things many dreamed of but few had the mix of talent and dedication to pull off.

That Charlie was deliberately trying to pull something off, however far-fetched it might sound, already put him a step above her in her book. Her CV looked impressive enough on paper but she had sort of wandered into most of her activities without really meaning to and knew her performance in everything she did could have been better than it was if she had been the type to make more sacrifices. She just didn’t push herself that way unless there was a great need, something really important that required that much effort, and since she was not John, effortlessly good at enough things that she didn’t have to worry much (at least for now) about the ones she lacked any natural talent for, the result of her being the way she was was a large quantity of mediocre work. Which was fine for now, but she did worry sometimes about where it was going, especially…in the new now. She didn’t know for sure, but she had a feeling that doors might open or slam in her face now less because of what she could or could not do than because of how her lovely new relatives felt about what lay beyond them.

She shook away the gloomy side of that thought. Having these people in her life was the last thing she would have chosen, but she had to make the best of it, especially since she didn’t really want to find an embassy and ask what the rules about the adoptive grandchildren of American citizens moving south permanently were. There were so many things that were so hard, if not impossible, without money, but now they had some. Maybe she could only use it within certain limits – the possibility of the careers of her father and older brothers being interfered with just to make a point to her was something she worried about a lot – but there had to be things she could do for herself and her family. They weren’t all-powerful, these people; if they had been that, they wouldn’t have played so nicely with her or Sallie. There was a best to be made of the situation.

"It could be worse," said Julian when Charlie complained of how the term was going. "We could have people carving messages about our nonexistent love lives into the woodwork. Did you hear about the one out here? John's convinced the whole thing is a total scam and that someone just picked those initials out of a hat." Ginny and Adam had occurred to her as the next-to-latest potential targets, but since Adam seemed closer to Francesca, she wasn't too sure about that. The names Gemma and Adam had crossed her mind first, but the thought of Gemma and Adam having a secret affair was just ridiculous somehow. If the messages were real, Julian couldn't imagine they were only for people in her year, so she'd decided to assume both of the first two messages might well refer to people in a lower year that Julian didn't know enough about to think of. She was paranoid enough around her classmates since the last message without wondering if everyone in seventh year was neck-deep in personal issues they'd rather not enter into the public record but someone else would rather they did.

16 Julian They wouldn't dare with you here to protect me. 254 Julian 0 5

Charlie

July 26, 2015 1:46 AM

I'm not sure I'm qualified for that job by Charlie

“I’m working towards college,” he corrected her, “Which gives me a nice buffer before having to face the realities of possibly trying to get into that career.” It scared him a little that what he’d chosen was so competitive. He wasn’t sure that he could do it. College entry requirements were simpler - they were set out in a neat little list to be checked off. These grades, these subjects, a portfolio of this many pieces. It was following a formula. Even then, he had left it a long time before getting serious, sketching what he felt like, when he felt like it. Only now, with a deadline looming, was he actually putting in some serious hours, hoping it wasn’t going to be too little, too late. And then, beyond that, competing in the real world would be different still. No list. Just his own initiative and motivation. Things that it seemed he lacked, without external prompting… Hopefully that was what college was for, alongside technical skills. Surely, at some point, someone would teach them how to be grown ups.

“I suppose,” he managed, when Julian said it could be worse - that people could be gossiping about their love lives. His tone was impressively even, although he paled a shade and a little bead of sweat appeared on his brow. “Personally though, I feel the person targeted in Transfiguration has more to be upset about.” As she’d said they would be worse off it their love lives were being gossiped about, was that a tacit admission? Not really, he thought… It depended on where the emphasis went. It would be worse if ourlove lives were being gossiped about. It would be worse if our love lives were being gossiped about. “Maybe the carving on the tree will actually prompt Adam and Ginny to get on with things, if they aren’t already,” he had very little doubt that it had been them that the graffiti on the tree referred to. And with plenty of people probably willing to rule Francesca out of the running thanks to the message about him, he doubted he was the only one who thought so. “The other one seemed much more nasty. Pulling out stuff that’s no one’s business really, and attacking the person’s character. That seems much more serious than a little heart on a tree.

“That’s what I don’t like about it… A little gossip between friends, that’s all well and good, but this seems mean, this is messing with people. That’s bad enough in itself, and I especially don’t like the idea of someone trying to mess with people I care about,” he added, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to state it as definite that that had already happened but nor did he want to imply that he thought it hadn’t yet - that it was only a future risk. If Julian thought he wasn’t already thinking it might be her, that gave her more chance to avoid the subject. But equally, if he made it flat out obvious that he thought that was already the case, she either had to confirm or deny, and he didn’t want to put her on the spot that way.

13 Charlie I'm not sure I'm qualified for that job 252 Charlie 0 5

Julian

July 28, 2015 11:48 PM

Just do your best. by Julian

"Still," countered Julian. "You have a goal. That definitely puts you ahead of me." She chuckled. "Sometimes I just want to beg my parents or Xavier or someone to tell me what do with my life, because I have no idea."

She wasn't lying. She had thought of that, though only casually, in whiny, self-pitying moods. In hard, cold reality, she knew it wouldn't work for her at all. She had enjoyed having a taste of financial self-sufficiency over the past two summers, being able to do things just because she wanted to or to see if she liked them without owing anything or any explanations to anyone, too much to want to live her whole life completely under familial supervision. Better just to take the bad parts of growing up along with the good.

She wrapped her arms around herself defensively as Charlie brought The Blackboard up. For the hundredth time she wondered why it hadn't occurred to her to go back to the room in the gap between John left and when she expected Professor Skies to arrive and just erase the damned thing. Fear of getting caught by someone who could read people and had no particular loyalty to her, she guessed, or just not thinking straight in her desire to be away from it, or maybe the forlorn hope that one of the Jareaus would have a massive public freak-out over it once class began and exonerate her of the charge of treason....

Which was terrible of her. Wishing that on someone just so she could feel better was unambiguously wrong. She almost wanted to go apologize to Chloe and Emery for thinking it even though she knew doing so would make her look like a crazy person and make her position worse. That last pragmatic consideration was, of course, another thing to be ashamed of herself for, but she couldn't help thinking of it even as she tried to consider more admirable reasons for keeping her mouth shut. She’d been praying this whole thing would all blow over on its own quickly, but it didn't seem inclined to do so. At this point, she thought the paranoia, never knowing exactly who the target was or who’d be next, was sustaining everyone’s interest far more than the actual dirt was.

Charlie got to the end of his speech. Julian only just caught herself in time to put her hands down by her sides instead of hugging herself again. "Yeah," she said. "Me, too."

She closed her eyes for a second. "That one hit kind of close to home," she admitted reluctantly. "Even if it wasn't aimed at me - or my brother - the minute you start talking about 'real' parents, you're basically slapping my family and yours across the face, right? Who died and appointed - whoever - the definition police? I'd like to find - whoever - and slap them into next Tuesday."

16 Julian Just do your best. 254 Julian 0 5

Charlie B-F-R

July 30, 2015 9:50 AM

But it might not be good enough, and then what? by Charlie B-F-R

“Well, don’t worry duckling, if you’re still drifting when I’m rich and famous, I’ll find you something to do. You can be my PA or we’ll make up some title for you that sounds fancy but actually just means you’re in charge of coming to fabulous parties, ok?” he grinned, as Julian bemoaned how much further he was with the whole ‘adulthood’ thing. He felt relaxed, although perhaps slightly fraudulent, as he slipped back into his easy manner of pet names and promising she would always be on his arm. It was easier, when he talked about fashiony things, to be the person she had always known and who she still expected him to be.

Her body language definitely shifted as he mentioned the message in Transfiguration. At first, she just seemed to want to brush the subject away. Which, he had to tell himself firmly, was fine. She was allowed to. But it was obviously something that had been twisting away inside her brain and he didn’t want it to stay there. He almost breathed a sigh of relief as she admitted it had riled her. Whilst it was horrible that it had, he had known that from her reaction, and it was better that she wanted to talk about it.

“Yeah, we avoid the ‘R’ word at home, and it’s not like my birth parents are ever coming back to challenge anyone for the title. It must be a lot more loaded when there’s…. When the birth parents are around, either actually or potentially.” Even if… He pondered her words. Even if. Not ‘though.’ That meant the possibility that she thought it was aimed her or John? Or was he over-analysing? Impossible to know and too much to call her out on.

“How is the other mother?” he queried. He knew the superficial details, he felt. He knew the existence of, that there had been contact. She even had a name. But he felt like Julian had held back a lot on the more fuzzy how that had felt, what impact it was having kind of details. And people were rarely shy about their happy, positive feelings…

OOC - I think this is roughly in line with what you’ve told me Julian would have told him but if it doesn’t fit, drop me an email with some details and I’ll modify.

13 Charlie B-F-R But it might not be good enough, and then what? 252 Charlie B-F-R 0 5

Julian

July 30, 2015 5:32 PM

Running? by Julian

“Okay, then,” laughed Julian. On the worst day of her life she thought she would have been amused by the image of herself anywhere remotely near the fashion industry, bobbing around like a rubber ducky (and probably, considering that the reasoning behind the fashion choices she did make voluntarily involved working with a figure which just refused to conform to the modern everything-boyishly-flat aesthetic, being compared to one in other ways by unkinder members of the company) in a sea of supermodels whose faces were frozen in a perpetual look of borderline angry boredom and a room full of Charlies and being mistaken in the press for his secret lover because of the usual connotations of her first name. She was sure her family would just love reading that, no matter who she thought of when she said ‘family’….

Almost everything she could even picture herself doing, however facetiously, did seem to involve having someone to take care of, though. That was worth a thought. There could be somewhere to go with that which wasn’t teaching or living her mother’s life. Not that there was anything wrong with either of those things, she just…really didn’t think she was tough enough to do them. Both of those jobs required a woman of exceptional strength and clarity of moral vision, neither of which Julian felt she had, at least not at this point in her life.

“You have that right,” said Julian grimly about the whole parent situation. “And we get extra-fun in my family, since we’ve got more than one set of them running around out there. One time someone actually asked Mom if my brothers Paul and Joey were real siblings, since they look alike. I’m sure you can imagine how well that went over.” If looks from an ordinary human could have killed, Paul would have probably taken out three people behind the woman who said it as well as the woman herself. Admittedly, she had implied John wasn’t Paul’s ‘real’ brother, too, though Paul was as stuck with him as he was with Joe no matter how one defined the terms, but she believed her brother loved her, too.

“Sallie? Fine, the last time I saw her. I think she’s settled back into Canada pretty well. Mom said something about her calling up her brother...Not sure if he knows about me, or at least her talking to me. Her side of the family hasn’t come up a lot. I don’t think she really wants to talk about it.” She smiled. “We’re all very polite and considerate of each other,” she explained. “Nobody talks about anything that anyone else doesn’t want to talk about, and all three of my parents have awkward lunches with me and my dead fourth parent’s regret-filled cousin.” At the time, that had been awful, but in retrospect, she had to admit it was kind of funny. “It’s…frustrating, though, because I think I’d be okay with everybody, but they keep expecting me not to be, so I worry that some of them aren’t okay, so I’m worried about everything I say or do because I don’t even want to hurt Sallie’s feelings, much less Mom’s. But since they just turn it back around on me when I just ask them, I never know what they’re actually thinking. It’s…frustrating. But we’ll manage,” she finished firmly, since remaining optimistic was the only tool for handling it all that she really had.

16 Julian Running? 254 Julian 0 5