Thistle and Stone [Chaennie]

Chapter 3

DENIAL

Roseanne was leaning against the doorframe heavily, her chest heaving up and down. Her hair looked like it had been run through a number of times with anxious hands. She was still in her Unspeakable robes, which were pulled tight across her stomach. Dark folds of fabric hung from her shoulders, crumbled.

Jennie, without thinking, moved to touch her. A deep animal need rose in her, shapeless but demanding. She pressed her damp palm against Roseanne's arm.

"Don't," Roseanne hissed, wrenching her arm from Jennie's grasp.

Jennie let her hand drop to her side as if she had been burned. Shame rose quickly up her throat, choking her. Mercifully, her headache had receded again. No longer a storm, her thoughts settled like a rippling lake around her. The ache that shot down into her magical core now hummed gently.

Roseanne seemed to have gathered herself as well. She still looked ragged, but she straightened up and jutted her chin out.

"Going to invite me in?"

Wordlessly, Jennie stepped back, waiting as Roseanne strode into her living room. Her high leather boots tracked mud on Jennie's favourite rug, a soft cream with intricate pastel roses lightly etched into the fabric. She looked down at her rug miserably and the streaks of dirt marring the flowers, shutting the door behind her.

Roseanne stood in the centre of the living room, her arms crossed defensively in front of her. Jennie sensed the distrust and suspicion rolling off of her in waves. Jennie moved to stand a few feet away from her, unsure what to say, the bizarreness of the situation clouding her judgement.

"Can I take your...coat?" She tried, gesturing towards the heavy robe that looped around Roseanne's neck and fell like a dark blanket behind her.

"No," Roseanne replied curtly, shaking her head when Jennie pointed at her boots. "The boots stay on."

"Merlin, fine," Jennie muttered, turning to settle herself in her favourite armchair. "Going to just stand there then?"

Begrudgingly, Roseanne sat opposite of her, on the loveseat that usually hosted Lisa and Jisoo when they came for tea. Instead of Jisoo's soft laugh and Lisa's wide smile, it was Roseanne who scowled back at her. Her sharp features were etched with scorn.

The uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Jennie trained her eyes on the little table between them, scattered with quills and pieces parchment that were filled with her notes and memos for her research. On days she worked from home—which were most, admittedly—this was her favourite spot to curl up with her stack of books and pile of notes, nose buried deep between old and papery-thin pages. She couldn't help but feel that Roseanne's presence was ruining it in some way, desecrating this sacred space of hers that had served as cocoon for her work.

-

Roseanne watched as Jennie pretended to be occupied with staring at her disorganized display of notes. Roseanne took a second to glance around the home, her lips pursed together tightly. It was...quaint. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, hadn't had the time to imagine what Kim's home might look like. She hated herself for being here. She felt weak. By the time she had made it home through the floo and brushed Baekhyun off, instructing him to get back to work, the nausea had almost knocked her off her feet. She had undergone endurance trials when she was training to be an Unspeakable, but she had never felt anything like this before. Not even when her and Baekhyun accidentally tampered with a cursed Time-Turner that had resulted with both of them enjoying long stints at St. Mungo's.

This was different. She couldn't be sure, but she could almost articulate what felt like distinct emotions pouring into her, assumingly from Jennie. Where she had expected anger, she felt only uncertainty and fear. It made her hate her even more. This open display of vulnerability, of weakness. Roseanne bit down hard on the front of her tongue, enjoying the shock of pain it sent rippling through her body. It focused her, cleared her mind.