kiss like a fist

♦ about ♦

age: 21 relationship status: single education: magical military academy ‘76 / hogwarts ‘80  occupation: former bodyguard, current punching bag

♦ recap ♦

Trauma has a way of staying with a person, and Hattie has done her best show at becoming a collector. The political underpinning of Lissa’s death meant that she was suddenly thrust into a foreign country with a person she didn’t really like. A new country. A new university. A job she wasn’t sure she quite wanted, for a while, it was all she could do to keep her fists at her side instead of at someone else’s throat.

Her luck changed by meeting people like Hollie, of which she knew she liked right away, and while she could understand the struggle the girl was undertaking, that apparently didn’t matter much in the end, anyway. After almost a year of dancing around one another, their brief romantic relationship lasted two months, at most.

After all of her time away, Hattie had been eager to go back to Brazil, despite how dangerous she knew it to be. Her fears were confirmed when her friend, Bertie Higgs, was kidnapped, and Hattie herself was thrown in jail for crimes she hadn’t committed. It was here that she had assumed that she and Adrian were in it all together, after he had worked hard to get her released.

Speaking of the devil. After the falling out that occurred between she and Adrian, for reasons she couldn’t be sure she could articulate to anyone, Hattie is without a job, without a purpose, and without a single clue as to the next direction she should take in life. The only thing she knows now is: she won’t drown.

♦ dating history ♦

hollie hopkirk: yeah,,,,,about that. all foreplay. one month relationship.

Clem had to laugh; after all, she knew that more than most. She took some sweets out of her packet and chewed on the edge of one before she answered. “This Be the Verse,” she said, cryptically. “Although, if you ask me, Larkin gave parents too much credit in it.”

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“Is she a famous writer or something?” Hattie asked curiously. Having no idea where the quotation came from, nor who Larkin was. Reading really wasn’t her forte. She much preferred practical things, like staring unseeingly at a wall, or sitting on the floor of a closet. Much better, in her estimation.

Clem rustled around in her pockets, magically enlarged, and pulled out a packet of sweet. She tossed them in Hattie’s direction. “I don’t normally share these, so that should tell you how dire the situation is. The weather, I mean, not—” Clem waved her hand to indicate she wasn’t talking about Hattie. She took a breath and looked the girl hard in the face. “You know, I used to think that too. That you had to appreciate life and look for the meaning, but one day I realised it’s bullshit. It makes you feel shitty all the time, it puts pressure on you that makes you feel even worse ‘cause you can’t live up to it, and after all that trouble, it’s not even true.” She shrugged, pulling out a second packet and opening it up. “Life is just— life. There’s no great meaning. We’re not here for any other reason than a bit of luck. Right sperm, right egg.” It was clinical when she said it like that, but it was fact. 

“The only thing you can do is live, however you want to. Whatever way is right for you, if you can. And if you do that, hopefully you’ll find some happiness along the way. Once you do that, everything is a bit easier.” 

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Hattie eyed the sweets, realizing once more that they were more things that she never once considered even trying. For the longest time she had regulated herself. Kept to extreme regiments in order to stay in shape. To protect people. And it was important to her, those workouts, and the strict diets that had nothing to do with ice cream and sweets. Only now she was beginning to wonder if it was all some deep manifestation of the control she didn’t have elsewhere in her life.

“I think parents fuck up so horribly sometimes, and it’s a bunch of bullshit that we’re left with ourselves afterwards.” She tore into the package, sliding down onto the floor. Hattie felt like a wild animal, though here in this closet, there was calm.

With one last big push, Clem tugged Hattie to the front of the crowd now streaming into safety. It was a squash as everyone at once tried to get through the door, but she held Hattie’s hand tight and soon they had squeezed in and out of the rain. After a moment’s consideration, she led the pair against the stream of the crowd who she suspected were heading to food stands and bathrooms and bars, instead on the hunt for somewhere smaller and quieter, both so she could ease Hattie’s tension and so it would be easier to continue the conversation. Inside it was impossible as hundreds of voices echoed around them. 

Eventually, Clem found what she was looking for. A quick swish of her wrist unlocked the door to the cleaning cupboard, which was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. Some sort of charm, probably. She pushed Hattie in and locked the door behind them. An upturned bucket became her seat. “After doesn’t matter, you’re right,” she finally said, now voices didn’t roar in her ears. “But why do you think life has to mean something?”

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She couldn’t exactly say: Well, Robards, it’s because, you see, I shouldn’t actually be here. I was brought back by some kind of fluke of circumstances that allowed Esmeralda Macnair to be in the right place at the right time. Otherwise you’d simply be speaking to a ghost right now. Well, she could say that. Only Hattie had never been so forthright, and given the fact that it wasn’t her only secret to share, and she could still feel Esmeralda burning on the other end of an invisible string, she kept herself mum on the subject.

“I don’t want it to mean anything at all. But there’s always that push deep in your gut that tells you that you aren’t doing everything you can to appreciate what you have. And then once you do appreciate it, it feels so fragile in your hands.” Like the warmth of two friends and their clasped embrace. Hattie breathed out once they were inside. Huddled into a closet. Away from the chill.

Clem couldn’t help but hold Hattie’s hand tighter for a few seconds as she processed the question. It seemed so many of late felt that way. It would have been better for Hattie to have asked the question of someone else— someone who wasn’t in the dark hole Clem had found herself in of late. It was difficult to try to muster up some positivity, especially as the water lashed all around them. “Yes,” she finally said, “I’m tired.” Of it all, in general, both applied. “I suppose you have to wake up for the little things, even if you have to actively look for those every day.”

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“I try to see the purpose. The beauty in small things. I’ve let things go. I’ve moved on. But nothing ever gets any easier, and sometime’s it feels even more ridiculous to create meaning where there is none. Why should we create narratives around events that don’t make us any stronger or any weaker, just stagnant and lost.” Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the uncomfortable smell that wetness brought with it, already staining the world in a musty scent. Hattie felt as terrified as she had before, but now with a layer of clarity. “I’ve spent the last few months looking up information on world religions. How they view death.”

She had to. It was a compulsion. Hattie had died, and now she was alive, and with determination came the knowledge that she still didn’t know what had happened to her. Not really. She knew that she had experienced nothingness in a way that she doubted anyone else could relate to—but that wasn’t enough. Hattie was driven to read. And that was terrifying enough. “Everyone is always trying to answer the big questions about where we go after. But I’m much more interested in how we handle the now.”

That was a question Clem could answer. “Definitely very fucked. I wonder if it’s something to do with all the extra magic being performed now wixen can do it anywhere and everywhere. Extra energy in the air or something.” She made a guess despite just saying they needed a meteorologist to give the answer. 

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“Do you ever just—” She almost shoved the thought back down her own throat. “Do you ever just get tired of it all? I really, sometimes it’s just, what’s the point. What’s the point of waking up every single day if what we get back continues to just be shit.” This wasn’t a discussion about death, but the exhaustion of being alive. Of being Sisyphus and rolling that rock up the hill every morning.

“A magical meteorologist.” Clem had to assume such a thing existed, if magical weather did. “It’s their job to study weather patterns, determine why certain things are happening. They’d know more than either of us, anyhow.” 

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Hattie wasn’t sure she liked the answer, which was silly, considering the fact that she rather doubted she would’ve been happy with any. That was just life, wasn’t it? Asking questions and never quite getting what you wanted back out of it. “We’re at least agreed that this is all completely fucked though, yeah?” She squeezed Clem’s hand. Begging for reassurance from a question that didn’t seem to offer much.

There were better topics to hit upon if Hattie was looking for a distraction. All Clem could do was frown at the drenched sky. “The weather events?” She shook her head. “I— don’t know. We’d need a met—a meter— a weatherman for that. What’s the fancy word for them?” As she spoke, she tugged Hattie through the crowd, more aggressively than she usually might do things. Sometimes the situation called for it. She pointed with her free hand. “There’s an entrance, right over. Nearly there now.” 

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“Meteorologist? How can they be helpful when it seems like the sky is quite literally falling every single week?” She didn’t mean to be snippy, but the stress, and the circumstances, and the fact that her hair was wet far before she wanted it to be meant that Hattie wasn’t giving her best. Despite wanting to. Despite being grateful. “This has to be magical. That, or the Earth is dying and it’s time we come up with a new place to live.”

“You’re not going to drown,” Clem promised Hattie in her most reassuring voice. “Inside is better.” She was certain of that, if only to be away from any crushing risk. She’d heard too many stories from Mary about overcrowded gigs to not be worried about such a thing. “Once we’re inside, we can transfigure sandbags to protect any weak spots water might come in and use magic to deflect water. But I’m worried about this crowd. We need to get in and find a safe spot to wait things out. “And lucky for you, you just happen to be with the ex-President of Charms Club. So if you do need a bubblehead charm, I’ve got you covered.” 

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She was following blindly. Trusting blindly. Holding on to the hope and determination that she wouldn’t be led further down the wrong path by another person. That she wouldn’t be wrenched into another relationship, then so easily be forgotten in the aftermath. Hattie’s life had already been brutalized by several natural disasters before this one, and so with that, she nodded at Clem. One quick bop of the head, a jutted out chin relaying the full story.

“So, why do you think this is happening?” Her voice remained steady, even while her heart wanted to fly out into the air.

12. if you could kiss one person without consequence, who are you kissing

Clem held tight on to Hattie’s hand. It seemed to her she needed it. That was fine by her; she herself would have less time to panic if she was focused on keeping someone else calm. “So you would have preferred the fire tornados?” she asked, taking any attempt to make a joke and divert Hattie’s attention away from the water falling and flooding all around them. 

Luckily for Hattie, Clem was an excellent pusher. She’d had great practice pushing her way to the front of food lines on the busy Tinworth Boardwalk. She was all elbows now, albeit only one as the other one was anchored to Hattie, as she pushed her way through the crowd. “We’ve just got to get inside,” she assured her. 

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“Uh, yes.” It wasn’t a logical decision. Not by any means. No one in their right mind should have been choosing fire tornados, but she wasn’t in her right mind, which meant they sounded pretty alright where Hattie was concerned. A bit warm and hard to track, sure. And yet?

Her eyes roamed all around them, taking in the crowd, the faces, the panic. Her own was bubbled up in her chest. “Are you sure being inside is alright? What if the water gets this high? Won’t we be trapped? I really, really do not want to drown.” They were nonsensical question for a nonsensical situation, and Hattie suddenly felt her age. “I likely should’ve paid more attention in charms class. Can’t you, you know, put a bubble on your face or something.”

Clem snorted at the reply. “You know, you’re not wrong. That bit always annoyed me too. It doesn’t matter how hard the rest of the team work or how well they do on the day if their seeker doesn’t catch the stupid thing first. Honestly, I mostly come for the nachos. They do really good ones here.” As she spoke, she was jostled from all sides, and eventually was hit hard in the head with someone’s swinging handbag. She stood, wincing. “Jesus, who brings a brick to a Quidditch match?” Looking down at Hattie, she held out a hand. “Come on, you can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”

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Hattie did something she never did. She hesitated. All of her life it had been trained out of her. Instinct always overriding fear. Today, with rain battering down, and the world suddenly going into a strange limbo, something inside of her twisted. Old wounds had healed, but fear could never be stamped out so readily. It had taken time to rationalize the fact that she could never be immune to the human condition, no matter how hard she had tried. Or her teachers tried before her.

Finally, after much deliberation, too much deliberation, Hattie took the offered hand and stood. Her grip was far from comfortable, and she had no intention of giving Clem back use of it. “I’m not much one for water,” she admitted sheepishly.

Clem nearly tripped over the girl. It was only the pure luck of the timing of her speaking that she didn’t go flying; not that she could have flown far, given the size of the crowd. To put in plainly, there were better places to be curled into a ball. “I think a coat is more likely than a boat,” she said, squatting down as best she could in the surrounding pandemonium. “Are you okay?” Hattie seemed to be faring much worse than her. 

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Hattie raised her head, but when she spoke it wasn’t an answer she gave, but a long-winded speech on Quidditch. “Why do people even like Quidditch? I mean, honestly, it’s a sport where there seems to be a million rules, and yet, no rules at all. How are you expected to play a game while also having memorized intricacies that seem rather pointless given how many points the Snitch gives you.” She scoffed. “Stupid.”

When: 20th March

Where: Puddlemere Stadium

Who: OPEN

Clem had only come to the match today for two reasons; a little bit because the Arrows were always entertaining to watch fly, a lot because nowhere did nachos like Puddlemere Stadium. In her fear of the crushing crowd and the flood flashing around them, it was easier to focus on the fact that now she had neither. The nachos she’d left in her seat when she’d had to vacate it quickly. Now all she could think to do was get inside, ostensibly because it was safer than out here, but also because inside was where the food stand was and what was going to help her feel better was food. The problem was, the crowd of people were all trying to get inside too, like a stampede, except a stampede moved faster. And then there was the rain. With a huff, she looked up to the sky. “This is the one time I actually wish I had a fucking coat.” 

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Hattie, to put it simply, was not the world’s biggest fan of water. Drinking it? Yes. Taking a bath in it? Absolutely. But ever since her swimming lessons with Dawn, she hadn’t made much progress. There was something so dangerous about rising water, even more than all of the fears that compounded onto her whenever faced with the ocean.

Which meant now, instead of acting brave, or bold, Hattie had found the driest part of the stadium and curled up into the tiniest ball she could manage. She was certain at some point someone would trip over her, but every instinct she had urged her to keep herself closed off tight. As though creating her own barrier from what was happening around her. Hattie barely even liked Quidditch. 

“We’ll need more than a coat, at this rate,” she spoke from her cocoon, though most of the words were likely garbled up in her own thighs, or perhaps just the pouring down rain, and anxious crowd. “More like a fucking boat.”

“Yeah, I have a feeling my parents would agree with you. However, what I am good at, is spending money to prop up my hobbies and interest,” said Nash. “I’ll find some place where we could play. Besides, London’s got a thousand pubs, bound to be one we could play in.” 

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“You find us a place to play, and I’ll even invite you over to practice. It’d be embarrassing and stupid to get on stage without figuring things out first.” That seemed like a normal friendship thing to do. 

“Just a visit for now — who knows I could be back before you know it.” He said, nudging her shoulder. “I’ll miss the ghosts too.”

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“Come on, you might as well teach me about them. I won’t be paying attention, but you’ll get to blab on about them as long as you like.” To her that seemed like the best middle ground. Hattie didn’t have to learn anything but still be attentive, and Lex could go about his business discussing something he loved.