when i caught it you were out of reach [stefano]

[Blair Hayward]

Blair, on her way to Gringotts to withdraw some of her money, had decided that she wasn’t going to make a big fuss over it this time like she always did. She would get in, do what she needed to do, get out, and go home as quickly as possible. She dreaded going to the bank because there was always a chance she’d run into someone she knew there, as there was with any public place – but her weekdays usually consisted of being home alone and then going to work and then sleeping when she came home, on repeat for five days until the weekend, and she was quite used to the people she dealt with at the hospital by now. It wasn’t enjoyable for her by any means, but at least there were less chances of patients coming in to St. Mungo’s that she might know than there were of running into someone who recognized her, or more specifically, recognized whose daughter she was, in Diagon Alley. She had no desire to associate herself with her mother, and by default, her mother’s friends.

Making her way through the alley after she’d apparated there following her shift at work that evening, she made a point of looking superior to the people she passed by, adjusting her hair so it fell perfectly around her shoulders and checking her nails at least three times in order to seem disinterested with the hustle and bustle around her. She was so preoccupied with appearing a certain way that when she finally reached her destination and stormed through the front door, her hands were on the handle but her eyes were on her nails, and she didn’t even notice the person who was coming at her from the opposite direction.

Not realizing her mistake until it was too late, her gaze still wasn’t where it should have been, and thus the breath was knocked out of her lungs as she collided into the person in front of her, who also apparently hadn’t been paying much attention to where they were going. Looking up finally, she was unmistakably furious, fuming with the sense of someone who could easily commit murder. “Where do you think you’re going?” she began heatedly, backing away a couple of steps and taking off her sunglasses energetically. “You need to watch –” she halted in what would have become a full on rant had she not seen who was facing her, the sunglasses resting at the top of her head and her mouth shutting tightly. “Long time, De Luca. Long fucking time,” she spat out icily, expecting him to recognize her immediately just as she had with him.

[Stefano De Luca]

Stef hadn't been back in England long. Work had taken him abroad, to the Caribbean, which he certainly wasn't complaining about. That was the sort of place he could live, he thought to himself. Warm sun all year round, beautiful beaches, and girls in very little clothing. Of the 'real' Caribbean, he had not bothered to find out much - the beach resorts were the place for him. He had spent as little time working and as much time sunning himself, drinking alcohol and pulling girls as had been possible, and had been reluctant to return to cold, wet London. He had had to deliver some papers to the office that morning, as a follow-up to the trip, but thankfully had the afternoon off to spend as he liked. What he ought to have done with it was pay a visit to St Mungo's, since one of the curses he'd been breaking had given him a nasty burn on his wrist, which had developed a greenish tint and wasn't going away. However, with his usual disregard for such things, Stef had decided that unless it was still there by next week, or got considerably worse, he'd leave it and hope it would go away by itself. It wasn't the first injury he'd sustained as part of his job, and none of them had ever been anything serious.

He was leaving the bank, strolling along with his usual confident gait and whistling faintly to himself, when the big front door suddenly flew open, almost knocking him backwards, and a figure crashed straight into him. His whistle stopped abruptly as his eyes took in who it was, registering first female, then attractive, and finally - a little late - Blair...

Any dismay he felt at the sudden appearance of the girl who had once been his friend (admittedly, that was before they had slept together and he had then proceeded to ignore her) was immediately hidden, and he put an amused grin on his face. She didn't seem all that pleased to see him; he supposed he shouldn't be surprised...

"Blair, love, nice to see you too," he said smoothly. "You're right," he went on, in tones of faux surprise, "It has been a long time - how's life treating you? And to answer your question, I think I'm heading for the Leaky Cauldron to get a drink," he added with amusement, "Care to join me?"

[Blair Hayward]

Blair didn’t know what, exactly, she’d been expecting Stef to be like six years after the last time they’d seen one another at graduation, but she could very easily convince herself that her preconceived notion of how he should treat her now was the exact opposite of how he was currently treating her. However, she really hadn’t anticipated him to have changed so much - she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but it was there, all in his manner of speaking and general demeanor and the way he was looking at her, as if it was all some big joke. Sure, he’d been a bit of an arse even during their Hogwarts years, but she’d overlooked it a lot more then because he’d been one of her only good friends. Now, though, she was disgusted that she was even breathing the same air as him and wanted to get away as quickly as possible, despite the fact that she had been the one to initiate the conversation in the first place.

“Life is excellent, not that you actually care,” she responded coolly, her tone nearly matching how smooth and unaffected his was as she gave him an uninterested once over, wrinkling her nose in a clearly unimpressed fashion at his next words. She found herself being less and less angry as the seconds ticked by, instead feeling that she was descending into a level of apathy that she wouldn’t be able to come back from anytime soon, considering that she was forcing down the initial rush of emotions that she’d felt upon seeing him for the first time after so long and replacing it with sheer emptiness. Therefore, at the moment, it did indeed seem natural for her to be a bitch to him above all else, not only because she was so good at it in the first place, but because she didn’t see any other plausible way to act, around him especially. “When hell freezes over, sure,” she told him mock-sweetly, “Just give me the date you predict that that will happen and I’ll be there.”

[Stefano De Luca]

Stef couldn't help feeling a pang of... something... at her obvious disdain for him. Regret? No, Stefano didn't do regret. Of course, it was always a pity to lose friends, and she'd been a good one, but what was done was done, and it wasn't his fault if she didn't want to be friendly. After all, all they'd done was sleep together. If she couldn't deal with that, well... c'est la vie. That was the conclusion he'd come to aged sixteen, and it was still the case. Shame; she was very attractive, even more so than she had been six years ago. Somehow, he didn't think she'd be up for a repeat of the one night they'd spent together.

"No need to be like that!" he said, in a tone of exaggerated hurt, "Of course I care..." And he genuinely did, sort of. He was glad her life was going well; he wouldn't particularly have wanted to hear about it if it hadn't been though. "Aw, come on," he went on coaxingly, "Once more for old times sake, and all that. I'll buy... and you can bitch me out for as long as you want. Definitely a win for you..."

He wasn't even sure why he was so keen to persuade her to come and drink with him. He hadn't thought about Blair Hayward for years, and he didn't really want to think about her now. He could quite easily walk on out of the bank and forget her for the rest of the day. There would be other girls in the Leaky Cauldron, most of them less prickly and more pleasant to talk to than Blair. But some stubborn part of him wanted her to say yes, whether it was that he didn't like being rejected by girls, or simply because she didn't want to come, but he wasn't going to give up without a fight...

[Blair Hayward]

“Get a grip,” Blair told him coldly, rolling her eyes almost scarily as precisely in the manner she would have done when they were both fifteen and he’d said something incredibly stupid that she didn’t agree with. She found his exaggerated tone far more infuriating than his actual presence, because it bothered her a lot that he couldn’t be blunt about how he felt instead of going around in pointless circles. If he wanted to make her feel like shit, then he already had all those years ago, and there really was nothing left to pretend about.

Opening her mouth to state that she was leaving, she suddenly felt rooted to the spot, unable to walk away just yet because of his terrible reasoning that she absolutely had to voice opposition to. “No, that’s definitely a win for you,” she shot back evenly, “Because I have money to buy my own drinks, thanks, not to mention a thousand better things I could be doing than sitting in a bar with you, of all people. Let’s face it, the only reason you want me to say yes is because you just can’t take someone turning you down. It would hurt your pride too much.”

[Stefano De Luca]

For a split second, as he continued to grin at her, it was almost as if they were teenagers again, winding each other up. Then the moment was gone, because the difference was that there was no friendship behind it any more, nothing good-natured about her roll of the eyes. And whether he did regret or not, he couldn't help realising suddenly that he missed it. Not all the time, of course; most of the time he never thought about it. But now, with her here in front of him, he missed her, but she couldn't see it... At least she hadn't walked away from him yet though, although he was beginning to face the prospect that she was going to...

"Yes, but if I spend my money on you, and you get to save yours, how is that a win for me?" he demanded, then grinned again, "Other than the fact that I get to spend time in your lovely presence, of course, which is definitely a win." He raised his eyebrows as her final dig went in slightly. "Ouch," he said evenly, "But you're wrong. That's not the only reason. One of the reasons maybe..." he added honestly, "but not the only one. And I'm not asking you on a date, Blair - just a drink and a catch up. Where's the harm?" And maybe, just maybe, it mattered because it was the only way he had of apologising without actually saying it...

((OOC - Omg, all the parallels with Devyn and Louis are messing with my head and hurting my heart - we must nEVER eVER let them end up like this in seven years...))

[Blair Hayward]

Blair continued to glare at him, making as much of a point as possible at being obvious that a lot of her precious time was being wasted as he continued speaking, though admittedly she could have walked straight past him at any time in the last few minutes and not have felt bad even one percent about blanking him, but she hadn’t. “Whatever, maybe it’s not a win for you money-wise, but it’d be a win in every other way because you’d have gotten me to agree, which I’m not going to do,” she insisted, one hand on her hip and foot tapping impatiently as she ignored his comment about her presence, “Things have changed, De Luca. You don’t get to have a say in what I do and don’t do anymore.”

Side-stepping him effortlessly but hesitating once more before entering the bank and throwing him an irritated look over her shoulder, she went on, “I never implied that you were asking me out on a date. You never had the guts to do that, anyway,” she told him coolly, unable to not slip that in somewhere despite her best efforts to do so, “But either way, it doesn’t matter, because we have nothing to catch up on.” She didn’t catch the double meaning in her own words, of course, because if they both thought about it a little bit more, they would realize that there really wasn’t that much which had changed in the past seven years when it came to their personalities. The only difference was that at one point he’d been one of her best friends, and now she could barely stand the fact that she’d talked to him for all of five minutes...

(OOC - oh man wHY WOULD YOU BRING THAT UP just don’t omg i’m so done)

[Stefano De Luca]

Stef thought for a moment, attempting to think of a counter argument for this, but not really able to, since now that she'd turned him down, it would be a victory for him if she changed her mind, and they both knew it. That was why it would have been so much simpler if she hadn't been so stubborn and prickly, and had just said yes at the beginning, he thought with mild irritation. "No need to turn everything into a competition!" he protested in the end, disregarding the fact that this was exactly what he did with his entire life, "Why does it have to be about winning and losing? I want to talk to you - is that a crime now?" he raised his eyebrows at her, "You mean there was a time when I did get a say in what you did and didn't do...?"

He folded his arms as she went to walk past him. Okay, well he'd tried to mend things, and if she wasn't having any of it, that wasn't his fault or his problem. It was a blow to his pride that he'd failed to bring her round, but that was Blair - he should have expected it. He should just go and find a girl who was nicer and easier to get along with, and who might actually end up in his bed tonight if he was lucky, which definitely had never been on the cards with Blair.

He stared at her as she continued to speak though, momentarily surprised out of his act by her words. He'd never had the guts to ask her out? Wait... he'd never even thought about asking her out... Was that what she'd been waiting for? Was that why she'd been so angry with him after they'd slept together, because she'd wanted it to turn into more..? And if that was true, and he'd realised it at the time, would it have changed things? That was too complicated a question to think about on the spot, so he filed it away for future thought (or, being more realistic, he pushed it from his mind probably never to be thought of again). Unable to think of any response that wasn't either too mean even for him, or made him look pathetic, he ignored that part of her speech.

"It's been five years since we finished school, Blair," he said instead, "Come on, something must have happened in your life for me to catch up on..."