don't be afraid of these thunderclouds

“Well I have no idea why,” Candice said, “It couldn’t be me. I would never distract you from your work. Must be something else,” She wondered back with a smirk on her face, “Are you? Good where you are now? Because I have a pretty good view if you ask me. I might never go back to work either.”

Mortimer chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. “But of course you’re innocent, how could I ever thought differently?” He asked, sounding amused. His arms tightened slightly around her and one of his hands started caressing her back. “It’s decided then, we have to find else to do.”

“You know when they say another year older, another year wiser, maybe that’s what happened to me? It’s made me all pensive in my old age.” Lucie joked lightly, poking at the balloon that was in front of her. “I would love to go for drinks though. There is nothing planned that spending some time with you would interfere with so don’t concern yourself with that.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty, not that age matters in the first place,” he chuckled. “Fantastic, it’s my treat then. Is there any particular place that you would like to visit or should I choose? We could grab a bite too, better not have drink on an empty stomach.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, “Acting out? Okay, sure I can. Could you show me what you mean though? I should know what I’m working with before I take a look,” He gestured for him to go ahead and demonstrate.

“That’s the best description of the problem that I could give. Some spells are not as strong as they previously were, some don’t work at all.. Sometimes there are sparks coming out of it too,” Morty sighed and waved his wand to show the other what he was talking about. It was a simple spell and yet he could feel that the wand was not happy to help him out.

“Oh shame, I guess it would be pretty distracting for you anyway,” Candice teased back, putting her mug down and moving her hands to the back of his neck to keep him close as she was pulled closer. Though they were still essentially a secret and there were still many obstacles they would potentially have to face or even were currently facing, she knew that it didn’t matter. As long as she had him to face the with, she would be happy. She just needed him, So perhaps I should just let you get back to your paperwork,” She murmured, pulling away a little but not actually moving far.

“I feel very distracted already,” he admitted. He couldn’t help that his thoughts were mostly focused on Candice these days and had been for months. “Who knows what would happen if someone kept distracting me even further... Would I ever go back to work or just decide I’m good where I am now..?” He wondered out loud.

“Aurora has a problem?” Jonah asked incredulously, “No, hold on, why does she have a problem with her? You said she wasn’t married but you said she was just…” He tried to remember back to their conversation, “Merlin, did you actually have an affair?” It had been a joking question but Morty had never properly answered the question, choosing to lie instead.

“That she does,” Morty sighed quietly. He didn’t want to go into details why his sister was not happy for him though. “Don’t go there, Jonah,” he warned. “We’re together and we’re happy, that’s what matters.”

Candice smirked, “Hmm, I wonder what you could be thinking about,” She said, pretending to think as she moved toward him and planted a lingering kiss on his lips. She knew that he was tired. If she hadn’t been around him all evening, she could have seen it on his face, “I was gonna offer you my cup since you might need it more but some other way actually sounds fun.”

He smiled as their lips met and he put his arms around her waist, pulling her a little bit closer to him. “I can’t say this crossed my mind, but I am not going to complain,” he teased. Candice’s presence always made him feel better and he couldn’t remember the day when she wasn’t there. In fact, he didn’t want to. He couldn’t express how happy he was to have her by his side when he was still dealing with an increased amount of work and his sister’s moods on the top of everything. 

“Another year older. I’m not sure where they are all going really. It’s just passing so swiftly.” Lucie admitted with a little smile. “And I look back at what I’ve done and I wonder whether I’m experiencing enough, you know? Perhaps sometimes I’m a little too much of a homebody. I feel like I’ve hardly done anything exciting like most people appear to have by my age. When people look at me, I probably appear quite boring in comparison.”

“Wow, this definitely doesn’t sound like something you should be thinking about on your birthday. You should celebrate and leave any potential thoughts about an existential crisis for another day,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Do you want to grab some drinks or do you have other plans?”

“You aren’t still mad at me, are you, Morty?” Jonah asked, “I feel like we haven’t spoken much since the incident where I walked in on you with your girlfriend,” He said this quietly, not knowing if it still had to be a secret, “How is she by the way? Are you guys still together?”

@mortimer-c​

“I’m not mad, Jonah. I guess… I guess I overreacted a bit back then,” Morty admitted. “She’s well and we’re still together, but things are still sort of complicated. Not with her, just with... Aurora’s not exactly happy,” he sighed.

“Oh hey, did you want coffee?” Candice asked, “I just had the last cup. You’ll have to wait for a few minutes for the next patch to be made,” She explained, “Don’t worry, I would never leave the pot empty, I’m not an ass,” She joked.

“I suppose I could be persuaded in some other way to stay awake,” he wiggled his eyebrows, grinning at her. He still had piles of paperwork to go through and his eyes kept closing whenever he was reading through the next file, but he was trying to get it together and hoped a cup of coffee was going to help him.

“Hey, Mortimer right?” Ben asked, recalling the name of his former housemate, “What brings you to our fine wand shop this morning? I’ve gotta assume it’s for a repair since you’re not an eleven year old looking like a kid in a candy shop.”

@mortimer-c​

“That’s correct,” he nodded his head and gave the other a small smile in greeting. “My wand has been acting out for a bit now, I’m not really sure what could be the cause. Do you mind having a look?” He asked and took the wand out of his pocket.

“If you’re planning on interrupting my enjoyment of this ice cream I really hope that it is for a good reason.” Silas pointed out, the corners of his lips turning upwards as he addressed the person who’d sidled over to the table in Fortescue’s. 

“No, no, carry on, I can see you’re very invested in those ice cream,” Morty observed teasingly. He had his own cone and was enjoying a short break from a shopping spree. “Is this seat free?” He asked, pointing out at a nearby chair.

“Okay so I know New Year, New Me and New Hair, New Me, are both terrible cliches but I have no applied both to my life and am feeling slightly optimistic,” Candice said smiling and then pushed up the ends of her new hair, “What do you think?”

"Who is that hottie who just entered? I don’t recognise her,” he grinned, waggling his eyebrows at Candice. “Really though, you look lovely, like always.”

Aurora tensed and pursed her lips. She didn’t know how long she was able to stay quiet when all she wanted to do was to tell him off. She lasted two more minutes. “You’re my brother and I love you, but what you two have done is despicable. Out of all the people, you should’ve known better. Pursue an engaged woman? Really? If you were so in love, why hadn’t she ended her relationship? Then at least your conscience would be clearer than it is now. I just… I can’t look at you and not compare you to our father,” she hissed.

He took a step back as if she hit him. His sister had never talked to him that way and it hurt. A lot. Mortimer had no idea what to say to all of that and he wished he could just walk away. He looked down at his hands and took a few deep breaths. “What do you want me do say? Do you want me to apologise? Well, I am not going to be sorry for falling in love. So if you were waiting for that, you will wait for a very long time,” he said quietly, sounding resigned.

“What about charming an innocent dog? Don’t you think there should be some punishment for that?” Merle asked the other. “You’re wrong by the way, they stripped him of his wand for a month.”

"I did not say that so don’t put words in my mouth,” he pointed out. “We are learning transfiguration charming animals so it’s not like this was something much different unless the guy hurt the dog. The punishment should be adequate to the offence.”

“The stupidity of some of these people that appear in trial– honestly,” Merle said, rolling her eyes a little. “I thought Americans were stupid but using charms on your dog to turn him into the size of a horse? Of course someone’s going to find out about that, Godric.” 

“Well, it’s nothing major really,” he said with a shrug. “As long as that dog didn’t end up flying above Buckingham Palace and then acting like King Kong, then I doubt any serious punishment will be given to its owner.”