Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 6, 2024 22:27:13 GMT -8
"I have a boyfriend, you know."
When Romy spoke her boyfriend into existence for the first time, it had caught Dane off guard. This was a couple of weeks into their work together in the basement and, as far as work relationships went, things were moving quickly. Dane still suffered through a long, boring shift, but he always had Romy to look forward to at the end of it. Technically Dane set his own hours, but he did his best work alone and didn't want to lose all of that valuable solitude. So he worked twelve hour days, as one should.
"Okay," he had replied to her, refusing to acknowledge the reason she'd even blurted it out. Maybe if he didn't speak his own feelings into existence they wouldn't be real.
And that was it, for a time, Dane and Romy did their acrobat routine to avoid talking about the thing that they didn't have to agree to not talk about. The illusion of just friends shattered suddenly one night though, after a long stretch of boredom series of stupid decisions led to a kiss and a little bit more in their seclusion. Romy's declaration of having a boyfriend didn't seem so strange now, in fact it felt downright prophetic.
And now, after that night, Dane was trying desperately to keep the vibes normal.
He didn't even know if Romy would come in the Monday after. He sat around all day stacking and restacking parchment, counting the ticks on the clock until finally the heavy metal door that sealed Dane away from the rest of the world scraped open and he found Romy standing on the other side with the same bright smile she always carried.
Normal vibes, he thought. Normal vibes.
"Heya, Rome!" he said a little too loudly, then fired off a pair of finger guns. "Like the city. Wasn't built in a day! HAHAHAHA."
- Rosemary Carter
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 7, 2024 9:52:59 GMT -8
Romy’s boyfriend was a nice buffer between Dane and Romy and whatever was lingering beneath the surface. Her initial plan was to never, ever bring him up because there was no reason to. Dane was a coworker, not a friend. Then as time went on, they started to build a friendship. It was hard not to develop a personal relationship when they spent hours locked up together in the basement.
She had been decorating the shelves with Dane’s miniature stadium collection one night. Romy took a step back to admire the work she’d done all evening. The plants and soft light did wonders for the normally gloomy office space. It wasn’t like the ornate offices the other Aurors had but it was something; very subterranean-chic.
Romy placed her hands on her hips and smiled and then she saw Dane. Fuck. It was a split second but she saw the look in his eyes and she felt panic rise from her stomach, up to her chest, and she blurted out, “I have a boyfriend, you know.”
Dane gave her nothing in return and Romy felt like an idiot for reading into the situation. They didn’t talk about it again, but there were signs of the invisible boyfriend every once in a while. Whenever she found flowers on her actual work desk, she brought them down to decorate the basement. Sometimes she would leave work early or need certain days off, always coincidentally days when Ballycastle had a match. She had to keep reminding herself that her boyfriend was nice and sweet and he was happy.
And then, one Friday night, none of that seemed to matter. It only took two big gulps of confiscated liquor to make her forget she had a boyfriend and she gladly accepted Dane’s lips and his hands and everything he had to offer.
On Monday, Romy was purposely late in an attempt to avoid running into Dane. Not that it made a difference because she almost never saw him on the elevator in the mornings. Then she spent the day looking at the clock on the wall, taping her foot under her desk, and rehearsing what she would say when she made her way down to him.
She lingered outside the metal doors for a couple minutes because she took a deep breath and forced herself to enter. Whatever speech she had come up with completely left her mind and all she could do was smile like nothing had happened. It was going to be okay, all she had to do was act normal, Dane would probably be as stoic as ever. But he wasn’t.
Everything about the interaction caught her off guard but she laughed. It was more of a nervous laugh than anything but she laughed.
“Hi, Dane,” she said, forcing her usual cheerful voice to return. She took a step in and the doors slammed shut behind her. Romy stumbled forward but managed to catch herself then let out a long sigh. She looked up at him, almost more embarrassed about this than the last night they spent together, and she gave him another smile to hide it. “It’s been such a long day, hasn’t it? The lifts weren’t working all day and then when they got them working, all the memos came flying through. It felt like a tornado, or I think it did cause you know I’ve never experienced one. What about you? Anything exciting happen down here?”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 7, 2024 12:28:55 GMT -8
It hurt Dane deeply to learn that Romy had a boyfriend. Dane wasn’t the type to chase women, but he wasn’t without his feelings either. The issue that led to Dane’s disownment from the Caspar family had actually been romance. His father was convinced that Dane, being the future heir to the family business, was vulnerable to outside influence. Marcus Caspart wanted Dane to marry into a family that he knew he could trust and, perhaps more importantly, enter into a union that would benefit their family. For Dane, it was the final straw in a long line of final straws. Marcus had expected Dane to walk back his threat of leaving the family, but a week later Dane was walking into his boss’ office to accept a spot on the organized crime task force.
Romy had been proof to Dane that he was right to fight for his autonomy. She was exactly the kind of person that he wanted, not some rich heiress who was willing to look both ways when a crime was being committed. That’s why it hurt him so much to learn about her boyfriend. He felt a little frustrated that it hadn’t come up before, but he couldn’t fault Romy for that. Their relationship had been strictly professional until the very moment that it wasn’t. Instead of breaking down, instead of showing any emotion on his face whatsoever, Dane shrugged off Romy’s admission as if it meant nothing to him, even if it was the world.
Of all the things Dane expected to happen when he saw Romy that Monday after, it wasn’t that he would blurt out some nonsense and laugh into her face. To her credit, Romy seemed willing to ignore the uncharacteristic outburst. She offered him a cheery greeting and a story about the lifts which wasn’t out of character for Romy at all. If she was thinking about the weekend, Dane would never know. He was used to Romy talking a mile a minute, keeping the conversation alive between the two of them, and as usual he was thankful for it. She gave him the time he needed to ground himself.
“I’ve never seen a tornado either,” Dane replied, blinking. It took him a moment to realize that “What about you?” was referring to his day and not tornados. Okay, so, he wasn’t all that grounded after all.
“Just, you know,” he broke the silence with a quick segue back into her question. “Me and my files,” he coughed. “We’re a bit behind on schedule today, awful lot of work to get done if we want to get out of here at a reasonable time tonight.” The unspoken part here being, “Unlike other recent nights.”
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 9, 2024 9:04:58 GMT -8
Sometimes when Romy opened her mouth, the words wouldn’t stop. It was her way of filling up the air because the silence felt suffocating. If she left it up to Dane, they would probably work in silence forever while the memories of Friday night drove them absolutely crazy. His outburst was out of character but she wasn’t going to draw more attention to it. She imagined that was his way of coping with the reckless choices they had made.
He was back to business right away and Romy stood there a little dumbfounded. That was it, huh? Like nothing had even happened. That was fine, they were both adults and they could still work together. So why did she feel like she was walking in quicksand as she made her way to her desk? Romy dropped her bag on her desk and sank into her chair.
“Okay,” she said, failing to mask her voice in time. She swallowed down the emotion she needed to hide and took a deep breath while she stared at the papers in front of her. After a beat, she straightened her back and a smile formed on her lips. “You’re right, I have to finish what I was doing Friday. Then I’ll move on to cases from 1904. A whole century before I was born. Tutshill Tornados are about to win the Cup five years in a row. What a time to be alive.”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 9, 2024 10:17:23 GMT -8
Once Romy was settled in at her desk, Dane suddenly felt like he could breathe again. This is fine, he thought. I can do this. Even as every thought led him back to the very thing he was determined not to talk about. How could he not think about Romy? They were locked in a room together every day, so close. Sometimes it felt like she was his only connection to the outside world.
Dane took his seat at his desk and coughed again, resetting his composure, determined to maintain a straight face even as his heart spiraled. He caught the small blip in Romy's voice that hinted at her real feelings. That didn't surprise Dane. She would have to be the emotionless robot that he wanted to be not to feel anything about Friday night. It was enough to make him betray himself, to break the silence with a sudden acknowledgement of what had happened, but Romy recovered and was quickly talking about her work, which somehow turned into Quidditch statistics.
Dane couldn't stop the smile. "You know that off the top of your head?"
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 9, 2024 10:59:32 GMT -8
“Of course, don’t you?” She asked. Her head was full of useless trivia. Normally she would fill the silence with it and he would let her go on for hours.
For a moment it felt like they were back to normal. Romy smiled, for real now, and glanced up toward his desk. He was looking right at her and Romy had to take a sharp breath. Last time they were in this room, she wondered if this would happen every time she looked at Dane. She’d been right. She tried to recover quickly and moved to grab her parchment portal to keep herself busy. “They had a great run at the turn of the century. Of course, that didn’t last long and they haven’t recovered since nineteen-ten. But maybe they’ll do it again in the future. I like rooting for the underdog.”
Merlin, this conversation was dumb and it was going nowhere. It was almost painful.
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 9, 2024 11:24:48 GMT -8
Sometimes Romy felt unreal. How had Dane met a woman who loved sorting files and spouting out random Quidditch stats? It really was like she was out to steal his heart sometimes. He could feel that same tension between them, not just the awkwardness of their connection, but the chemistry that had drove them together in the first place. It was getting harder to work every day.
"It's nice to watch an underdog succeed after so long," Dane continued smiling. "But I'll always be a Wimborne fan." He sighed. "When did you change your allegiance from Ballycastle to Tutshill?"
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 9, 2024 12:11:57 GMT -8
Romy did not set out to steal Dane’s heart. If anything, it felt like he was the one trying to steal hers. Despite having a boyfriend who was always happy, Romy’s type had always been brooding, dark, broken boys. Any time Dane made a despairing comment, Romy’s heart raced and she thought of about a hundred different ways she could help him.
It didn’t take long after coming to work down here for her to notice they had really good chemistry together despite being complete opposites. And maybe that’s what she really needed in her life, she could get lost daydreaming in the clouds sometimes. He kept her grounded.
But maybe a little too grounded with his comment about Ballycastle. Right, Ballycastle. God, she swore she could hear the irritation in his voice. Her smile faded and she focused on the portal in front of her, tapping away. “The Tornados are the only team who have managed to win five consecutive years.”
She stopped her tapping and looked at him again. “It’s still Ballycastle for now, but the Wasps have my heart.”
Dane could choose to read between the lines or not, but this was as clear as Romy could be about how she felt in the moment.
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 9, 2024 13:42:00 GMT -8
Romy had mentioned Ballycastle in one of their first conversations. What Dane knew was that she was a Wimbourne fan by nature, but was supporting Ballycastle this year "for someone else." He hadn't thought much of the statement at the time, other than how odd it must have been to abandon her support of her lifelong favorite team. When Romy admitted to Dane that she had a boyfriend, though, it clicked with him. Her boyfriend was a Ballycastle fan and he wouldn't let her follow any other team. Well, that really salted his grits.
His bitterness only grew out from there. It wasn't Dane's intention to halt their conversation, but a part of him did still want to blurt out something about Friday night. Maybe he was surprised that Romy, in her vast overabundance of words, didn't have a single thing to say about it.
He was definitely reading between the lines.
"Right," he said, looking back to his stack of parchment. "Let's try to focus on work, okay? We lost a lot of time on Friday and it's been a struggle making it up today."
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 9, 2024 14:13:51 GMT -8
It seemed like Romy’s life was full of misunderstandings and bad decisions lately, something she wasn’t used to. But she had no one else to blame. She could have made it clear from the beginning that she had a boyfriend. She could have told him that she was supporting Ballycastle because her boyfriend played for them. She could have told Dane that he was all she thought about all weekend.
Instead, she let everything hang in the air. It was a weird feeling because Romy Carter was never afraid to be herself or be honest to others. She couldn’t be upset with Dane when he didn’t get what she was saying, but it did hurt. Had she really turned into a liar and a cheater for nothing?
“I’m sorry.” She started on her unfinished stack from the previous week. “I’ll stay longer tonight to make up for it. I didn’t mean to waste so much time.”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 9, 2024 14:34:34 GMT -8
Dane realized after the words left his mouth that he was being prick. Even if things were complicated, he still enjoyed Romy's company. Heck, she was the most important person in his life. He'd done so much over his brief twenty-two years to sabotage everything, and he could feel himself sabotaging right now.
Dane looked away from the parchment, knowing that if he said what he wanted to say, he wasn't going to go back to work for a while. Did he even want to? It was too hard sharing such a close space with Romy and doing nothing about. Not after what they'd shared.
"Rose..." he exhaled, remembering the soft words she'd left him with on Friday night. My friends call me Romy. "Romy," he corrected. "Are we going to talk about it?"
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 9, 2024 16:09:47 GMT -8
Romy’s life had revolved around Dane for the last few weeks. Or at least her nights did. It was hard not to feel like she was living two separate lives.
During regular business hours, she was Rose. She formed connections with people in her department. She was bright and eager to learn and even though sometimes they looked at her like she was a kid, they all seemed to embrace her. Outside of the Ministry, she was just Romy. A girl who liked to have fun and didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
What Dane got was a mix of two as the days went on, but when she introduced herself as Rose, she was drawing a clear line. It wasn’t until after she felt his lips on her that she decided to completely let him into her personal life. Now, every line was blurred.
When he called her Romy, she froze then slowly placed the parchment down. She could pretend he was talking about her forced allegiance to Ballycastle but there was no use in dragging it out. They weren’t going to get anything done tonight until they talked about it.
“We can..” she trailed off, unsure if she was meant to say it first. But she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth so instead she chickened out and said, “you go first.”
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 9, 2024 21:43:39 GMT -8
It felt unfair to Dane that he should be the one to choose the first words. Sure, he had broached the subject and practically insisted that they acknowledge what had happened, but! Did he have to? Now that the ball was in his court, he just wanted to squeeze the ball until all of the air blew out.
But Dane knew that, no matter how much they tried to ignore the thing between them, nothing would ever be the same again between them. Either they continue sitting in silence and just be awkward coworkers, or they have the damned conversation and find a way to go forward with this thing in a way that maybe salvaged what was left of their friendship.
Dane sighed. What he wanted more than anything right now was to fall into one of his massive stacks of parchment with Romy and make out with her for days. Romy was the only thing in Dane's life that he really wanted, everything else was still a complete mystery to him. He was an orphan with no aspirations but the ones that had been forced upon him. Could a person even be an aspiration? Dane was willing to try.
But he knew no matter what the resolution was, he wasn't leaving the office holding Romy's hand. He resolved to accept that.
Dane sighed, then said, "I like you, Romy. I've liked you since you walked through that big door and talked about Quidditch stadiums. I liked you when we were bored Friday night, and I liked you when I was kissing you over this desk. It's not even about what we did. It's about how I feel, and I know it's not going away. So, we have to figure this out before we leave today."
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Year/Job
Wizengamot Admin. Services
Steph
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Post by Rosemary Carter on Feb 10, 2024 8:11:29 GMT -8
This was the most she had ever heard Dane talk at once. Usually he gave her short responses or grunts as acknowledgment that he was listening when she talked a mile a minute. Now, she was the one with nothing to say as she shrank into her chair. The role reversal was insane.
She wasn’t sure what the plan had originally been. Work as if nothing had happened? Try not to let it happen again? But that was difficult because when her mind had cleared on Saturday morning, she knew their actions had nothing to do with the illegal moonshine they found.
Dane confirmed it too.
They were both feeling the same thing and they were only separated by the two desks. It was so simple. What was stopping them from saying ‘fuck it’ and finding themselves of the surface of his desk again? As much as she liked Dane, she knew it was all wrong. She had a boyfriend who trusted her and she betrayed him. She didn’t even recognize herself anymore and all it took was one opportunity to have what she really wanted.
Romy shifted in her worn out chair, the squeak of the loose screws was the only thing to fill the air after he was done talking. There was nothing either one of them could say to turn back time. It was about moving forward and accepting that things happened sometimes. The best thing to do now was get everything off their chest no matter how hard it was to get it out.
“Dane,” she couldn’t stop herself from sighing too. “I should have left when you told me to on Friday… it’s just… You’re the best part of my day, I didn’t want it to end. I don’t want this to end. I like you too much and I’m afraid I ruined our friendship because now every time I look at you, I keep thinking about us on your desk and… how do we move on?”
For the first time in her life, Romy didn’t have a clear map to follow.
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Year/Job
Auror In Exile
Break your back to earn your pay, and don't forget to grovel. |
Travis
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Peace Lily
Feb 10, 2024 10:53:12 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by Dane Caspar on Feb 10, 2024 10:53:12 GMT -8
Dane wasn't sure what Romy meant when she said that she didn't want it to end. The assignment? Their friendship? Their romance? He didn't even know if it was a romance.
Dane stood up from his chair and dragged it over to Romy's desk so that he was sitting face to face with her. He held his hands in his lap, fighting the urge to reach out for her. It was hard not to focus on her lips as she spoke, hard not to imagine them brushing up against his again. Was it going to be like this forever? Trapped in a dim basement for the rest of his life desperate for this woman?
"Maybe we can't move on," Dane said. "There's something here, Romy. I feel it every day when I look up and see you enter the room, when I see you sitting at this desk...I go home and I'm still thinking about you. And I don't think I'm alone in that. So we have to find a way to friends, and to feel this way about each other. Can we do that?"
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