Icebreaker [Rickie]

[Lilly White]

Lilly White sat in one of the corner’s of the Three Broomsticks quietly observing the patrons coming and going. This village was sweet and cosy, as well as being nicely tucked away. It wasn’t busy either, since it was mostly there because of the school. This suited Lilly just fine; she had never been one to socialise much.

Taking a sip from her hot chocolate, she flipped open her worn out sketch book that lay on her lap. Immediately she was bombarded with welcomes from her subjects, many of them only half finished. She and her drawings had an agreement; only the ones who did not complain got to stay in the notebook. The rest were stored in the sound-proof filing cabinet that was up in her studio.

Drawing and painting was Lilly’s passion. There was nothing she enjoyed more, although playing her flute did come close. The kind of pathetic thing was that Lilly liked drawing and painting so much because the people and characters she depicted were her friends. All her life she had been a little socially… awkward. Real people made her feel very nervous and claustrophobic because she was afraid of what they would think of her. At least with drawings you can always crumple them up and throw them out if you don’t like what was coming out of their mouths.

She surveyed the room, looking for an interesting person to sketch. There were many a number of colourful characters in here, from young couples to teens, but none of them particularly caught her eye. She liked exploring new things, and although each drawing or painting had its own personality, if she was constantly painting couples she would get bored.

Just then, a movement at the top of the stairs caught her attention; the reason being the person who had just emerged was an absolute giant. She didn’t get to sketch tall people very often and almost instinctively she had picked up her charcoal pencil and had started sketching a rough outline of his body structure.

Despite his height, he managed to look muscular and sporty; not at all gangly or uncoordinated. Lilly was clumsy at the best of times, and wondered how someone so far from the ground managed to avoid tripping over their own feet every two seconds. His face was brooding, but she considered it handsome. Not that she was going to admit that to anyone but herself. Actually, even she didn’t want to admit it to herself. All the same, she paid more attention to detail to his face than she did to almost every other subject. The good looking ones were always the most fun to draw.

She spent quite a while sketching him actually; totally absorbed in her work. Not only did she complete her initial sketch, but she also got a few good portraits done as well based off the profile she had started with. But it was her first sketch that started interacting with her first. Or more to the point; didn’t start interacting with her. He turned his back and refused to speak.

Lilly was rather baffled by this reaction. Never before had one of her drawings or paintings refused to speak to her. At least he could gesture rudely or make strange noises. But no; he simply turned away and ignored her. She tried to prompt him into talking to her, but to no avail. He couldn’t be that offended by her interpretation of him could he?

“Turn back around this way,” she whispered to the drawing; wanting to check that she had indeed given him a mouth. He didn’t exactly follow her instructions, only throwing her a brooding glance over his shoulder before returning to his previous position. At least she had given him a mouth; so what was his problem? Curiously, Lilly looked up to search for the actual version of her drawing. She wondered what sort of a person would inspire that sort of a portrait. But she could not see him anywhere; so she instead returned t her work, trying to add shading and other details to the best of her ability despite the fact that he was still being uncooperative. She had to keep on using a constant stream of compliments and insults to keep him moving the way that she wanted.

“Stop squirming,” said Lilly sternly, prodding him in the side with her pencil. Many of her other sketches complained that shading was an unpleasant experience. This one however still refused to say a word, although the way he was moving and wriggling suggested that it was indeed uncomfortable.

[Rickie Connery]

Life in the village of Hogsmeade had taken on an element of routine since Rickie Connery had first arrived there almost a month ago. He worked for most of the night, get yelled at by Silas, went back to the hotel room that was practically his home now, played with Muck, slept for two to three hours then wandered the surrounding countryside until he had to work again. It was not the healthiest of routines, the lack of sleep clearly showed on the young man’s face, giving him the look of someone much older. It wasn’t like he chose not to sleep though; it was because of the nightmares he didn’t sleep.

Now, sitting on the side of his bed half dressed, Rickie had just awoken from one of said nightmares. He was lathered in a cold sweat and his body still shook. Muck sat beside his friend, amber eyes watching the man in an almost concerned way. The kitten mewed and rubbed his soft head against one of Rickie’s hands. Rickie rubbed the cat back, grateful for the company of the small animal. He smiled weakly at Muck before moving off the have a quick shower. The man ignored the painfully obvious scars reflected in the mirror while he shaved roughly at the small basin but as he dressed he ran his thumb gently over the soft new flesh.

Rickie could feel the wounds burn underneath his touch and the warm sensation of blood running over his body. The agony ebbed and flowed, taking over every sense. There was nothing else but pain in Rickie’s world. He was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

As quick as it had set in the flashback ceased, leaving the young man gasping for air as though he had been held under water. The pain was gone but the memory was still so violently clear and the scent of blood still lingered. The day he had been wounded he hadn’t died but he’d sure spent the better part of his recovery wishing he had of. To escape any more potential flashbacks Rickie finished dressing hastily, placed Muck in one of his jacket pockets and left.

As he walked the corridor to the stairs, Rickie eyed the door of room thirteen before practically running past it. The girl, Lilith, who was in that room, had dragged him in there the other night. The memory of it made the man’s face turn a shade of bright red, not a night he’d be forgetting any time soon for all the wrong reasons. Gloomily he reached the top of the stairs and as he made his way down them he was oblivious to the girl sketching him. It was only when he was amongst the throng of people did he spot her working intently on her sketch.

Naturally curious, Rickie watched her as she looked at the stairs then wheeled her head around obviously looking for someone. Wait, he’d been the one on the stairs before, but surely she wouldn’t be sketching him. He wasn’t worth sketching, was he? Now normally Rickie would go hide off in a corner to mope about things but if this girl was sketching him then maybe she was worth talking to (not like that Lilith girl). The bartender looked at the rather tall man with a puzzled look on her face when he did not sit in his usual spot; she’d gotten out a glass of water and everything for him.

Rickie wandered apprehensively over to where the girl was sitting. The closer he got to her the more he wanted to run back to his normal place, she was so pretty and friendly looking. Not someone who would want someone like him around. Regardless of these thoughts the man pressed on and sat down in a conveniently vacant stool beside her. ”Hello,” he said timidly, his pale cheeks flushing a bright red. ”I haven’t seen you around before, are you new here?” Rickie asked curiously, stammering throughout his pathetic attempt at conversation.

[Lilly White]

Lilly nearly jumped ten feet into the air when someone slid into the seat beside her. She had dropped the pencil that she had been holding in her left hand and had been using to pin down her sketch and stop it from wriggling by force. It naturally rolled under the seat of the person who had just sat down; and apprehensively Lilly slowly looked up to find the man whose sketch had been so troublesome sitting right beside her. Aware that her mouth hung open, she quickly shut it as her cheeks flushed a shade to rival his own.

“Me?” Lilly squeaked in an unusually high pitched voice; even for her. Realizing that this was a rather silly question (who else was he going to be talking to?) she cleared her throat in an attempt to make her voice resemble something that could pass as normal and tried again. “I, er… yes, I just moved here.”

All this time Lilly had left her sketch book wide open; easily visible from his angle. She had only noticed herself when she had looked down in extreme embarrassment, which then turned to pure mortification at the thought he could have been staring at her drawings this entire time. He would know she had been sketching him. The traitorous sketch seemed to have changed its personality too; and was staring straight out of its papery confines. It couldn’t have just stayed brooding and staring into the white nothingness of the rest of the page could it?

The silence that had been becoming increasingly awkward was straining at breaking point; and Lilly found herself desperately grasping for a way to draw attention away from her drawing. Impulsively, she shoved her hand at him, “I’m Lilly White.” She could only ever introduce herself to new people if she didn’t think about it. Except she immediately wished she hadn’t. Not only was her hand smudged with charcoal, but there was an imprint of his face on the back of her palm. In that moment; Lilly was wishing that she could anywhere but here. This was something beyond the realms of mortification; this was something ten times worse. More like a hundred times worse.

[Rickie Connery]

The girl’s jumping in turn made Rickie jump and flush a deeper shade of red. Oops, he hadn’t meant to scare the poor girl half to death. It seemed he had that affect on people, a fact that was one of the many reasons he moped about the place. He moved to get the pencil that had rolled underneath his seat but pulled back, embarrassed, when she got to it first. Rickie smiled his usual, weak smile at the girl when she looked at him for the first time. Up close she was extremely pretty and it was making the poor man’s heart race. There was no way he’d be able to talk to her, he might as well get up and leave now.

”Sorry,” Rickie apologized quickly for making her jump and drop her pencil. He turned away, pretending to be distracted by the squirming in one of his jacket pockets. Without looking at the girl next to him, Rickie pulled out a bundle of cream and ginger fur and placed the kitten gently on the bar. By now the staffers were well acquainted with Muck, and as they walked back and forth they gave the cat a quick scratch behind the ears. Purring with delight it didn’t take long before he noticed Rickie sort of talking to a strange girl. Yay a new friend! With bravery that his friend lacked, Muck strode straight up to the stranger and began to bat playfully at the moving sketch.

”Sorry about him, any way, welcome to Hogsmeade,” the man apologized again, pulling the kitten away much to its annoyance. As he did, his eyes couldn’t help but linger on the sketchbook. They widened as they took in what the girl had drawn, so she had been sketching him and it was amazing. It looked just like him, even if it was a little rough, and what’s more it moved. ”Wow, that’s really good,” Rickie remarked quietly, gesturing at the down in the dumps looking pencil version of himself. He was going to ask why she’d bothered to draw him when there were so many other better subjects in the room but he held his tongue. As far as first impressions went, his were pretty bad already without him saying things like that.

The uncomfortable silence was killing him, it was official; Rickie sucked at interacting with people when they weren’t off their faces from alcohol or lust. ”Lilly,” he repeated, ”Nice to meet you. I’m Rickie Connery,” the man replied automatically, shaking Lilly’s charcoal stained hand. When he pulled it away it too was blackened by the charcoal but there was also the imprint of his sketched face staring morosely up at him from his palm. For the first time in a long time, Rickie Connery laughed with an almost full smile on his face.

[Lilly White]

Lilly’s embarrassment eased up a little as the man reached into his coat pocked and revealed a small kitten with the most adorable expression on his face. Lilly’s hand twitched and her hand gripped her pencil a little tighter, and she had to resist the urge to start drawing the little kitten immediately. She blushed again however as it padded confidently over and started trying to hit her sketches; only drawing attention to them once more.

”Sorry about him, any way, welcome to Hogsmeade,” said the man, pulling the kitten away from her sketch pad. The dear little thing seemed awfully disappointed by this, and Lilly already found herself thinking that if she got to know the cat and his owner more, she could make so many lovely self portraits for the kitten to play with.

”Wow, that’s really good,” remarked the man, as he pointed at her drawings that she had been trying and failing to hide.

In normal, less embarrassing situations; Lilly would have been tickled pink about being complimented on her drawings, since it didn’t happen much. Then again, she usually didn’t have the confidence to show her drawings to others, and she rarely had friends over to view her paintings. On this occasion however, Lilly was just pink.

Lilly was still a delicate shade of red as she shook hands with Rickie, but was glad he hadn’t walked away yet, at least. Most people didn’t even persevere much after they realized that she was going to be no fun at all. She inwardly cringed as he looked down at his hand, which was now almost as dirty as her own, and where the imprint of his own face had put itself. And then to her utter astonishment, he actually smiled. Shouldn’t he have at least been mildly creeped out that she had been sketching him so intently?

Lilly looked down again to find that while she had been wondering about his curious behavior, her traitorous hand had already sketched that beautiful moment of him smiling, capturing it forever. Oh well; if he didn’t already think she was strange then he probably wasn’t going to mind if she continued her drawings. She propped her sketch pad up on her knee again and finished off the rest of his details as fast as possible, well aware that he was peering over her shoulder.

“You have a lovely smile,” she complimented quietly, not brave enough to look up at him as she said it. Lilly was a truthful person, but even that small statement could not truly express what she had felt when he smiled. It positively lit up his face. After quickly composing herself by adding a few extra lines to her sketch, she looked up to face the real thing. Quickly looking for a way to change the subject, she reached out to scratch the little cream coloured kitten between the ears. “You cat’s very photogenic! What’s his name?” She had used up her very small amount of courage on complimenting his smile, and didn’t have the guts to add that he was in fact very photogenic himself.

[Rickie Connery]

The more time that he spent sitting beside Lilly the more Rickie began to tense up. A few years ago he would have been chatting eagerly away at the girl. He would have been friendly, funny and very open but that was then and this was now. The boy he’d been was long gone, destroyed by blood and shellfire. Still, through the urge to flee, he found himself wanting to touch Lilly’s hand again. The feeling of her soft hand in his course one still lingered, a softness that he had not felt in a long time.

The man watched curiously as the girl’s face flushed a pink that he was sure, if he could see, rivalled his own. It wasn’t long until her hand started sketching as if it had a mind of its own. In no time at all, there, on the paper, was his face and his rare smile. Unshaded it looked a lot like he was normal if a little thin, there were no dark circles under his eyes that were his most prominent feature. ”I really like it,’ Rickie said quietly, motioning at the drawing as he watched Lilly work on it.

Never, in recent memory, had anyone complimented his smile. If it was possible, Rickie felt the familiar rush of warmth to his cheek as he reddened further. ”Yours is too,” he returned the compliment shyly, looking away for a moment. He wanted to say more, to tell her how pretty she was. How positively radiant she looked when she was engrossed with a sketch and how her smile lit up a room.

Beginning to get embarrassed Rickie sighed in relief as the topic switched to Muck. The kitten purred happily as Lilly gave him a scratch on the head. ”That’s Muck,” he replied, moving to give the cat a pat too. Rickie’s fingers brushed Lilly’s and his heart raced at the touch. ”Sorry again,” he mumbled, pulling his hand away almost hesitantly. Normally he would frown; frustrated at himself but this was not the case. There, still sitting on his face, was a smile, a smile that was stronger than his normal ones.

[Lilly White]

A little part inside of Lilly swelled with pride as Rickie complimented her drawings. It made her want to sing actually, or play her flute. She couldn’t meet his dark blue eyes without blushing profusely and a tight sensation forming in her chest. This certainly wasn’t how she remembered her last social meeting. The again, that had been quite some time ago.

”That’s Muck,” said Rickie as Lilly stroked the little kitten’s head. He began to purr blissfully, and Lilly tickled him under the chin with a long finger. “He’s a darling little thing isn’t he?” cooed Lilly, feeling much more at ease talking about small fluffy animals than people’s smiles.

Rickie’s hand brushed hers as he went to pat Muck as well, and Lilly’s wild imagination immediately jumped on the possibility that he had done it on purpose. But her more realistic mind rejected this fantasy; why would a good looking man like him want anything to do with her?

She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t some high flying executive business woman, she wasn’t famous and her figure was practically underwhelming. There was nothing special about her. She had long ago accepted that was why her first and only boyfriend had dumped her after only a week - there were far more fish in the sea, and those fish were all better than she was.

However, her worrying was interrupted when he actually smiled again. For a second, Lilly forgot about her ponderings as that tight feeling I her chest returned. Perhaps she had heartburn. Realising that she still had her hand suspended in mid air from patting Muck, she awkwardly dropped it with no grace whatsoever. Straight on to Rickie’s glass of water; knocking it over and smashing it on the table top in the process. Cold water spilled everywhere, and of course Lilly made a grab to stop it far too late, and sliced open her palm in her attempt to catch the glass.

She bit her lip and held up her throbbing hand, rifling around in her satchel for a tissue to stem the bleeding. She daren’t use magic to heal it, since it was her wand hand that she had cut and trying to perform magic with her left hand could have disastrous, potentially destructive consequences. Finally finding a small packet of tissues that she kept for emergencies just like this, Lilly pulled one out and dabbed delicately at the cut, hissing in her breath in an attempt not to whimper. It really did sting something shocking.

Much to Lilly’s distress as well; she could feel tears pricking at her eyes. She hated crying at the best of times, but she didn’t want to cry in front of Rickie. She wasn’t that much of a wimp surely. But despite Lilly's determination, a single tear escaped her long eyelashes and slowly trickled down her face, leaving a little wet track in its
wake.

[Rickie Connery]

For a moment Rickie let his eyes wander to Lilly’s face, a move that was not at all one he made often. There was a tightness in his chest that he’d never felt before. It was an unfamiliar sensation but for once it was not unwelcome. The man’s skin tingled as his hand brushed against hers and his heart beat wildly in his chest. He knew full well it wouldn’t be long until Lilly got up and left in search of someone more interesting and the only reason she was still next to him was because of Muck but he didn’t care. For once he was happy to be able to relax slightly in the moment; he could mope about what was coming after it happened instead of anticipating it.

The sudden movements of Lilly dropping her hand and trying to catch the glass made Rickie jump, visions of mud and trenches flashing across his own vision of the Three Broomsticks main bar. Oh shit, not now, not with her was all he could think as he fought off the flashbacks for a moment. It was hard, like trying to fight a strong current dressed in thick winter clothes. It was the sight of something bright scarlet that snapped him entirely back to reality, or what he hoped was reality. He was torn between hoping that Lilly’s hand was really cut so he didn’t make a fool of himself if he tried to patch something up that wasn’t there and that she wasn’t cut so she wasn’t in pain.

It was the single tear that told him the gash on the hand was real. instantly, with the same look of fierce determination he’d always worn when treating people, Rickie set to work. Out of his pocket he pulled a blue handkerchief and began to rip it up into a makeshift bandage. After that was done he softly took Lilly’s hand and looked at the wound, wiping away some of the blood with his thumb. ”It’s not too deep, I don’t think it needs stitching,” the man observed before expertly wrapping and tying the handkerchief bandage over the cut. Shit, he’d totally forgotten he had a new wand, there was no real need for the bandage but it was done now.

She probably thought he was some kind of freak. What kind of person just randomly patched up someone the muggle way around Hogsmeade? Looking down at Lilly’s blood on his hand he again grew self-conscious. He’d been doing so well with the first impression too. ”Sorry,” he muttered, looking away and trying to rub the blood off his hands. Normally he would have gotten up and left by now but something compelled him to stay in his seat for now. Maybe it had something to do with Lilly but he didn’t really know.

[Lilly White]

Lilly looked up, surprised, at Rickie’s sudden movements. He emerged from rifling in his bag with a blue handkerchief which he promptly ripped up and used to bandage her hand up. She was unused to muggle ways of healing, but knew that they could be extremely useful, especially in situations. She did wonder a little as to why he just didn’t simply he didn’t heal her hand with magic, but she didn’t want to seem as rude as to pry. He must have had a good reason not to, and it was none of her business.

She flushed again as he softly lifted her hand up with his own large ones; wiping some of the remaining blood off. She sincerely hoped that she hadn’t stained any of his clothes. “It’s not too deep, I don’t think it needs stitching,” he said expertly, as though he had done this many times before. Lilly wasn’t entirely sure as to what stitches were exactly, but she did know that muggles used them to close up wounds.

“No, it’s very kind of you,” replied Lilly shyly as he tried to apologize for… well she wasn’t quite sure what. “Thank you. I’m terribly sorry if I got blood on your coat, and for breaking your glass. I’ll pay for anything that needs replacing, I promise.” She blinked at him like some sort of baffled doe in the headlights; her eyes showing an uncanny resemblance to the calm, warm brown gaze that giraffes had. Or perhaps it was just the general wide-eyed innocence that all small animals seemed to possess.

She had really meant her words. No one ever took care of her; even as a child she had been sort of a second priority. It felt… well nice; nice to know that she really did exist and wasn’t just a shadow of society. Having someone pay attention to her rarely happened, and she feared that already she had blown this first impression out the window, just as she had countless others. She braced herself for rebuke and for Rickie getting up and leaving, probably with some polite excuse. The nice ones always were polite about it all. The less nice ones were usually just blunt or rude.

[Rickie Connery]

Uncomfortably Rickie shifted his weight and refused to look Lilly in the eye. What he’d done he hadn’t even thought about what he was doing. It was automatic, drilled into him that it was what to do when someone was injured. Sure that worked on the battlefront but here, in the civilian world there were hospitals and doctors. It was a place where he didn’t need to patch people up and yet he did it anyway.

”Don’t worry about the glass,” he said quietly, pulling out his wand as he did so. With one quick motion and a muttered incantation the shattered glass on the floor sprang back together. Rickie picked it up, took Lilly’s hands and placed it softly in them. ”There, good as new,” he said smiling warmly at her. Only when he smiled did he look her in the eye again. he looked himself over for blood and found a tiny splattering on one of his sleeves.

”It’s ok, I’ve had worse,” Rickie shrugged. He definitely meant blood and no way was that a lie. Being a medic it came with the territory, people tended to bleed all over you when they were injured or when you had your hand half way inside their stomach in a futile attempt to find a severed artery.

The kind gaze of Lilly’s most certainly didn’t escape Rickie’s attention. His dark blue ones met her brown for a moment and he had to look away as his pale cheeks flushed red again. Still he was smiling, since meeting Lilly he’d done so more than he had since he’d went AWOL from the military hospital over three months ago. ”Hey Lilly, do you, one day, maybe, if it’s ok with you, like to, uhh, weather permitting, go have coffee with me at the cafe down the street?” he stuttered out in a feat of bravery that he rarely showed.

Rickie’s heart hammered in his chest as he dreaded her answer. It would be a no, he knew it already so why had he even asked? It was just that she was the first person he’d met that seemed interested in him enough to endeavour in a conversation with him. She was the first girl too to show him kindness at patience at his odd behaviour.