I Can See for Miles and Miles

“Tell me more of your thoughts.” He says softly, his voice throaty-he can go from zero to gone for her in a matter of seconds. Cleona’s ability to do that to him, and her choice to never use it against him is what makes him love her the most.

“I erm..didn’t tell you the whole truth earlier.”

He watches her frown mirror the swoop of guilt he feels inside the pit of his stomach.

“I didn’t just come cause I missed you. I mean…that was a big part of it.”

His eyes search her face, looking for a crack and finding none in her expression. He drops his eyes, playing with her fingers as he speaks, feeling stupid for even bringing it up.

“I uh, they were just talking about Quidditch. Kidding around but they made some jokes about having my memorabilia and…I dunno.”

The old shame opens up inside him from the box in his soul he thought he’d thrown away. He’d replayed the hit that ended his career a thousand times-if he’d just flown a bit faster, been a bit smarter, he knows he could’ve beaten it. No matter what they all told him-it hadn’t been impossible, Benjy just hadn’t been good enough.

He offers her a fake smile.

“Just figured seeing you would make me feel better and uh…”

He brings her hand up to his lips and kisses her fingers.

“I was right.”

Her heart sinks in her chest. She’d felt something vaguely gloomy in her chest as he embraced her but it was overpowered by his teasing and obvious delight in seeing her. Even with their connection, it still could be too easy to see what Cleona wanted to see and more than anything, she wanted to see Benjy safe and happy.

“Oh sweetheart.” She squeezes his hand, meaning the name with every ounce of affection within her but hating how hollow it still sounded in her ears.

\0Eyeing him carefully, she brings the inside of his right wrist to her lips.

“Do you wanna talk about it...or do you want distraction and talk later? I’d be more than happy to remind you of how brilliant you are and those tossers be damned.”

Just to reinforce her point, she drags her lips down his index finger and closes them just around the tip, keeping her eyes fixed on him as he watches her.

“Well, I had a plan to make it go faster, but you decided to hate me.”

He leans as far forward onto the counter as he does.

“Oh yeah? Is he nice?”

He grins at her, following her every move with his eyes.

“Or uh, if you wanted to physicalize your thoughts…”

Benjy raises his eyebrows.

“I might be available.”

Cleona raises an eyebrow at him and smirks as she finishes off her biscuit before answering.

“He was very nice. And naked.”

She walks her fingers down his arm to his hand and still a little thrill shoots through her chest when he turns over his hand to take hers.

“I don’t know, baby. My thoughts have been pretty tame. Like...this.”

She leans forward and presses a close-mouthed kiss to the bow of his lips.

“And this...”

She tilts her head to the side, smiling to herself as Benjy remains perfectly still, and kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Hmm, I was worried about that.” He steals another kiss before crossing back around the counter, sitting at one of the stools on the stretch next to the cash register. “Guess I’ll have to admire you from afar-my second favorite activity.”

A tea set floats over to him and Benjy starts serving himself.

“How’s your day been, baby?”

She smiles, leaning on her elbows over the counter, and snags one of the biscuits off his tray.

“Ever since the morning rush, dreadfully, dreadfully slow...”

“Sweet hell, I love you.”

He moves around the counter to grab her by the waist.

“Shacklebolt said he’d cover for me for an extra hour if I promise to stop switching the height on his chair. And I missed you a lot so…” 

He moves his left hand to squeeze her ass as he kisses her deeply.

“Thought I’d make the most of it.”

She bends forward to kiss him again, looping her arms around his neck and scratching her fingertips affectionately through the back of his hair. 

“Rightly so, you pervert.”

Benjy smiles to himself when he sees that Tarot Teas is empty, save of course, for the fantastic backside of his girlfriend.

“Ey love.”

He says, taking on a much posher accent than what he has naturally. He has to stifle a laugh as he watches her back stiffen.

“You’re the best looking thing behind the counter. How much are you gonna set me back?”

@cleonaodempsey​

“Far more than you can afford, mate.”

Completely and totally not in the mood for this and maybe only half paying attention, she whirls around on the stranger only to find that he is most definitely not a stranger.

He groans after she cuts him off, his hand coming to his forehead. He’d completely forgotten. Completely bungled a chance to make a good impression on her friends. 

“It’s not too much to ask, and if you’d stop cutting me off, I’m trying to apologize to you.”

“I forgot, okay? Work got away from me today and that’s shitty and I’m sorry that I stood you up. But it’s not like I did it on purpose, yeah? Cool it with the passive aggressiveness.”

He rubs his closed eyes. He’s so tired. He just wanted to come home to her and crawl into bed.

“Do we have to do this right now?”

“Oh I’m sorry, when do you think you could fit me in? Sadly, I forgot to bring my diary, but I’ll do my best to remember whatever time would work better for you, darling.”

She flicks her fingers and sends her half-full mug careening for the sink. She’d made the tea earlier with the intention of calming down, but that’s actually the last thing she wants right now. How fucking dare he call her out for being passive aggressive. Like any of this was actually her fault.

The tired smile that’d fallen onto his face fell right off when looks at him-Cleona’s gaze is all ice but somehow fire at the same time. Shit. That wasn’t good.

“I’m good. I ate at-”

“-at the office, yeah. I figured.” 

Benjy raises his eyebrows at her but Cleona seems really interested in the bottom of her mug. He resists the urge to sigh, a little annoyed for not seeing it. She’s obviously lonely-he’s been neglecting her with these 12, 13, 14 hour days. Not an excuse, but a reason-for her too. A tiny part of the annoyance is that Cleona can’t cut him the tiniest bit of slack with all this going on. Obviously he’d rather be spending his time with her–maybe it’s time he reminded her.

“Oh-kayyy. What’s the matter, hmm?” He walks around the table so he’s behind her, coming down to press a quick kiss to her cheek and then another down her jaw, her throat, down to her shoulder, speaking as he does.

“Something bad in the tea leaves today, baby?”

She stiffens, hating that she can’t give into him like she really truly wants to. Merlin, all she’s done is miss him, but this, this hurts far more than she’d like to admit. And maybe she could forgive him easily if he just couldn’t make it, but...he forgot completely. Couldn’t even be bothered to try to reach her at all. Just so she knew he was okay. In the very least.

Of course it doesn’t help that his attempt at being cute just infuriates her all the more.

“I just got back from Arthur and Molly Weasley’s about forty-five minutes ago.” 

She takes another sip of her tea, still holding herself too stiff in her chair and staring straight ahead at the light blue walls of his kitchen. She feels him straighten up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder that she fights the ever so small urge to shrug off.

“Oh?”

She nods slightly, setting her mug down on the table but keeping her hands clenched too tightly around it. “Closed the cafe early and everything.”

“Cleona, I--”

“I told you about it last week,” she interrupts him, her voice getting a bit louder, her words spilling off her tongue faster. “I reminded you last night. And both times, you told me that you’d absolutely be there, without a question. Nothing would stop you from meeting me in Ottery St. Catchpole so we could go up to my friends’ place, the same people who happen to be the parents of my godson no less. You know, Percy? Kidnapped by a fucking madman late last year, no big deal--”

She stops herself and heaves a big sigh, getting carried away. Benjy has stopped touching her now but she still doesn’t look at him. If she looks at him, she’s either going to start crying or yelling and she doesn’t want to do either.

“Obviously you weren’t there.” She shrugs the shoulder he had just been touching. “It’s fine. We got on. I defended you. But--” she clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “The thing is, you didn’t--you didn’t bother owling me or anything. To let me know that something had come up, let me know that you’re all right, anything.”

She turns around in her chair to look at him, her expression impossibly cool as she studies him.