Don't Stop Me Now [Marian]

[josh]

As Josh dropped to the ground near the lake, wrapping arms around his knees and staring out over the water, he felt bad. He felt really bad. After all the time it had taken him to convince Marian to attend the ball with him, he'd barely seen her all night. They had been split up after only a short while and he had gotten severely distracted by Kai. And Toby. But mostly Kai, who he had been talking with, who he had ended up kissing even. If only the night could have ended there, but it hadn't.

No, of course Toby had to drag him off and make things so much more complicated again. Their little...fling, or whatever this was called, seemed to gain influence on him every day. And it had been so bad from the start. Honestly, he'd been stalking him almost, always trying to catch a glance of him, sometimes even sneaking a peek when the other was sleeping. Not that this was much healthier.

At least this time, Toby had said that he cared. At least now there was something to go on. That's what his brain told him now, over and over, no matter how much he tried it to shut up. It was so easy, for Josh, to believe that anything good might actually end up happening. Which was why he needed Marian so badly. Because she would tell him that he was an idiot, that he was insane and needed to be locked up somewhere for ever thinking that Tobias Steele might try for something honest with him.

[marianmorgan]

She tried not to resent Josh, but a small part of her did. Not because he had convinced her to attend the ball, but because he had convinced her to do so wearing something that she usually wouldn't go near with a six-foot broomstick. It wasn't fair that boys' dress robes were predictably ridiculous because they, at least, could blame the shortcomings of wizarding fashion for the fact that they looked stupid. The dress she wore would have looked wonderful on anyone but her; and besides, no one else seemed to have embraced the Venetian side of things, so she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Still, he must have had his reasons. When, towards the end of the night, she took off her shoes and walked across the silent grounds to the grassy banks of the lake below, she had forgotten to be mad at him. All she could think about was how good it would feel so sink her aching toes into the cool, still water. And taunt the Giant Squid while she was at it.

(( Here's her outfit! Poor thing ))

[josh]

To be honest, Josh thought she had looked positively beautiful that night. He was secretly glad that not all girls were dressed up in costumes that screamed slut, mostly because all straight males evolved into idiots at the mere sight of those skimpy clothes. He hoped that gay men weren’t the same, though he might have looked a little worse for wear when confronted with Toby in a kilt. It was just...the thoughts. Of him not wearing anything underneath, of wanting to find out...He might have gone a bit caveman at that point.

As he heard someone approaching, his face lit up when he saw it was Marian. Josh jumped to his feet, heading towards her with a patented Joshua Callaghan puppy look on his face. As their feet carried the two best friends towards each other, Josh silently promised himself he’d buy her anything she wanted for Christmas, because she definitely deserved that for showing up at a ball she hadn’t even planned to attend. ”I’m sorry!” The Gryffindor gave her the best pout he could muster, hoping that she wouldn’t be all too mad. Besides, she needed to save some of her anger for when he told her about Toby. Threatening to cut off his balls just wasn’t as effective the second time.

[marianmorgan]

Who was it who had invented heels, and how exactly could one go about exacting revenge on a dead person? Marian danced pitifully from foot to foot, trying not to imagine the blisters she would have to treat tomorrow. She was tempted to try doing it herself, but she had never really tried to heal anything, and what worked in theory could, in practise, give her lemur paws. So she would refrain.

Joshua's puppy-dog expression was irrelevant. When she saw him, she hooked her fingers securely around the backs of the terrible shoes and pounced on him. "You!" she cried. "Do you know what's happened because of you? People have seen me. Wearing this. I don't have an identity anymore, Joshua! I'm in a dress!"

[josh]

"You! Do you know what's happened because of you? People have seen me. Wearing this. I don't have an identity anymore, Joshua! I'm in a dress!"

Josh wasn’t prepared for the pouncing he received, though he let her take out her anger on him, never returning it, though he enveloped her in a bone crushing hug the moment she stopped trying to hit him. ”I really really love you! Does that help?” Maybe it would, but surely only for a second or two, or until he decided to tell her about Toby. His heart was soaring and falling at the same time, that worry spreading through his veins like wildfire.

Toby liked him. He had to. At least a little...or he wouldn’t have ordered him to stop kissing Kai. He wouldn’t have said that he wanted him, if he still hated him. And most importantly, the younger Gryffindor had promised to tell the truth. One way or the other, that had to mean something positive. ”You look beautiful though. Is there anyone I need to beat up for hitting on you?” He got very protective over her, though Marian proved to be very capable of defending herself. ”I’m sorry I bailed on you. Toby dragged me off...”

[marianmorgan]

Marian kicked half-heartedly, then gave up and let him hug her. Sometimes he was more like a little brother than a best friend, an annoying trait because she couldn't be angry at him when he was so thoroughly adorable. She hit him softly with the shoes. "You'd better really really love me. My feet feel like I splinched them."

She might have blushed a little when he said she looked beautiful (people didn't tend to do that) but it only lasted a moment. She slid neatly out of his grip and meandered to the lake, dipping her toes in the water. "Don't be stupid, no one hit on me." Then he mentioned Tobias and she rose up like a werewolf. "He did what? The festering little maggot!" she cried. She grabbed the shoes and stamped back onto the grass, shaking her feet dry and hopping menacingly on one foot with a clear determination to storm up to the castle and beat the crap out of him. "I can't believe he would ruin your Halloween! Of all the disgusting, slimy - "

[josh]

Josh cringed when she responded the way she did, trying to find curse words that were bad enough to describe her loathing for the Gryffindor. Life would surely be a lot easier if the feeling was mutual, but he could never hate Toby. He had tried, he had wanted to, but when it came down to simple truth, he loved him. Despite everything, despite the way he had been treated, the way he had treated his so-called friend, he had never stopped caring for him.

”He...didn’t.” Toby hadn’t ruined his Halloween. It had been the best night in a long while, really, but he was afraid that if he told her that, he’d risk death. Either that or at least some limbs. When Marian got seriously angry, it was rather scary. ”He just...saw me kissing Kai and got jealous over it. It was kinda cute, actually.” Josh couldn’t help beaming at the floor for a moment, running guilty fingers through his curls. Mari had been there for him through the tough times and he repaid her by going off and almost dating the one person she had tried protecting him from...masochist much?

”He told me that he was going to tell the truth. And then some stuff happened that you really don’t want to hear the details of.” At the mention of that, Joshua blushed a little. God, when he thought back of how close they had been to getting caught, well, it just turned him on. It made him want to find Toby and repeat that. Which really was the problem and why he was glad that Marian was around. She’d stop him from being stupid and pathetic.

[marianmorgan]

Marian stopped mid-hop and stared at him suspiciously, ducking her head a little when his gaze shifted to the floor. Though she would never understand some of the choices he made - most of the choices he made, to be honest - her topmost priority was Joshua's happiness, not beating up Tobias. Though, to be fair, it would probably feel very good. Joshua could try to lie to her, but she knew him too well. The way he blushed, the way he smiled, the way his fingers trembled a little as he ran them through his hair. Tobias must had been more than just cute. He looked like he'd just come out of a sickening Wyrd Sisters song.

She was just lowering her shoed feet when he mentioned the mysterious details, at which her nose wrinkled in an involuntary grimace: "Ew, Josh!" Then, very reluctantly, she sighed and rubbed her cheek. "I'll forgive you on two conditions. Give me a piggy back ride, because that would cheer me up and I can't stand. Two, tell me all about you and... Kai? And Toby while you do." She paused to take the shoes off again, then stood behind him and wrapped her arms anticipatorially around his neck. "Except the parts I don't want to know."

[josh]

"I'll forgive you on two conditions. Give me a piggy back ride, because that would cheer me up and I can't stand. Two, tell me all about you and... Kai? And Toby while you do. Except the parts I don't want to know."

Josh grinned at her, hoisting her onto his back and holding her carefully as he began to walk back to the castle slowly. ”Well, Kai...he was just there, and being all pretty and lonely cause Casey is a stupid idiot for not realizing how cute he is, and we were talking...and that somehow led to kissing...” There was a soft smile on his face when he thought of the Hufflepuff, though it faded when he realized that he might have hurt him during their kiss. Kai deserved more than just a careless snog in a corner. He deserved the world. Why couldn’t guys just see that? Why couldn’t Casey see that?!

”Anyway, Toby got jealous. It was really fucking cute. He just...came over and dragged me off. We’d been talking before that, he owled me a few times and I guess we’re sorta...getting back to being friends again. Or at least forgiving each other. But he keeps running away from me...so when I was kissing Kai he got pissed off and told me I should know better after everything we’ve been through.” Josh glanced at Marian, realizing that they hadn’t talked in ages.

”He kissed me. In the owlery. And he said he’d miss me if I left. But then he ran again, so I got confused and worried...and figured maybe he only wanted me around cause I would never turn him down. But he said it wasn’t like that...that it bothered him when I was kissing Kai. Toby...he said he still cared about me. I don’t know what it means exactly, for us, but...he said he’d tell the truth to everyone.” His voice was soft, a little hoarse from emotion and how much he’d been saying over the past couple of minutes.

”Maybe I’m an idiot, but I’m hoping he will. That he means it. He said that he wanted me...and then the parts you don’t want to know about happened” At that, Joshua’s face spread into a wicked grin. They could have been caught, and that still stirred something inside of him. In a stupid, completely romantic kind of way, he knew that this meant it was different somehow. Toby would not have taken that risk if he were to play the rape game still.

[marianmorgan]

To be honest, she hadn't really wanted to hear about the kissing, either, though she wouldn't tell him that because kissing seemed to make up most of his life now. How strange was it, to go up to a person and press your mouth against theirs and expect things to still be normal afterwards? How on earth did one go on? And how could you possibly know what they had eaten beforehand? It was all very well, for example, to say that one's boyfriend tasted of strawberries, but to Marian that probably meant that he had bits of mouldy strawberry stuck between his teeth, which she would rather do without. And it was Halloween, for Merlin's sake. There was no telling what those hideous boys had gotten their hands on.

She rubbed her face, thankful that he was carrying her on his back and could not see her grimace. "So you kissed Kai, then Toby got angry and kissed you, and... kissed you again? And because of all this kissing he's going to tell the truth?" She said 'kissing' rather like anyone else would say 'swallowing slugs'.