April 26th, 1890 — Evander Darrow's House

Zelda had asked Alfred to pass along an apology to Evander, which he hadn't done yet. He wasn't sure if he would. It had been over a month since the hospital encounter, and while that whole interaction kept popping up in his mind periodically throughout dinner, it was at least possible that Evander had moved on. Not terribly likely, knowing the way Evander fixated on things (particularly when he felt awkward about them), but possible. He'd refrained from bringing it up so far because Charity had been with them for dinner, and explaining who Zelda was and why she thought she needed to apologize to Evander to his niece was... not something he wanted to do. Besides, while Charity was with them he had plenty to talk about with her; she was, as it turned out, a pretty interesting person, at least for an eight year old. He hadn't spent any significant length of time with her since their sailing trip. He felt that was fairly forgivable, given that he'd spent the next week and a half recovering from a near death experience, but he didn't think that she knew that was what he'd been doing — at the very least, he hadn't told her — and now he was feeling a little guilty about how long it had been, particularly since he'd promised to take her sailing again some time, and to teach her to swim.

Eventually Charity was dismissed from the dinner table and sent up to bed. Alfred expected he would be dismissed soon after; this invitation to dinner was an obligation, he assumed, and not born of any actual desire for his company on the part of his brother. Just one of those things one did periodically, and probably more regularly now that Charity was living here. Maybe Evander was even hoping that taking the initiative to invite Alfred for dinner would stave off any more sailing trips in the foreseeable future.

Anyway, he didn't expect to stay much longer, was the point, which meant that if he wanted to ask Evander a question he'd best get right to it. "Have you told her anything about the... curse situation?" he asked after Charity had disappeared up the stairs.

Evander Darrow

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   Cassius Lestrange, Charity Lloyd, Evander Darrow, Jupiter Smith

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander had been fairly quiet during dinner - pensive, rather than in any sort of ill-humour - but Alfred and Charity had had the conversation well in hand, and time had unfolded quickly, the dinner going off without a hitch or an argument. (It felt a rare thing that he could say that.)

Charity had certainly enjoyed herself, which was cheering to see, and her goodnights would be as sweet a note as anything to end the evening on. However. Evander straightened slightly in his chair but otherwise did not get up, merely set his napkin upon the table in front of him and folded the corners of the cloth contemplatively into neat little triangle shapes, until he was sure she had dutifully scampered up the stairs.

Because there were still conversations to be had, although his brother had gotten there first. (For once in their lives, they might even be on a similar sort of page. The curse had clearly been one of the subjects on his list.)

“No,” Evander answered. “I mentioned you hadn’t been well last month,” he said, brushing past the idea of not well in the sense one might’ve explained away a simple headcold, “but I thought it better not to worry her with the fact that, of the two relatives she has left, one had been in the hospital inches away from death.” Surely he’d been right not to say? Hesitantly, he glanced at Alfred with the hope of seeing agreement in his eyes. He never knew what to do with decisions like these: he preferred honesty, usually. But it just did not seem fair to thrust such a thing on the poor girl’s shoulders, not when she had already faced quite enough loss for an eight-year-old. She was too fond of Alfred already, without needing to be anxious about the possible consequences of ancient curses. 

“How is the curse situation?” Evander added, with a flash of worry.

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   Charity Lloyd, J. Alfred Darrow

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That was probably for the best, Alfred reflected as Evander answered his question. If it was all going to eventually be resolved and he was going to carry on in good health for the rest of his natural life, why bother telling her at all? It would only lead to worry in a time when she was still adjusting to an entirely new life and hardly needed new concerns. And if he did end up dead... well, then it would be up to Evander to decide what to tell her, anyway. Maybe he'd tell her about the curse, or maybe not. Maybe pretending he'd died of some illness would be less traumatic for her, or maybe she would prefer the truth. It wasn't as though he'd be able to have much of an opinion on it, in any case, since he would be dead.

As for Evander's question... Alfred wished he had an answer. The letter he'd received from Zelda yesterday had been fairly descriptive about the state of the Voyager, but he'd found it significantly lacking in terms of actual details about what she planned to do with him.

"Basically the same, for the moment," he answered hesitantly. "There haven't been any other... incidents. But I've been in my flat more or less all day, every day, except for a few errands and things," he continued. "So I haven't been giving it very many opportunities to get angry. They've managed to clear it out of the Voyager, for the most part," he added with a note of optimism. "They've got it bound to one particular door, they said, so the ship itself should be able to sail properly again. It's harmless, tied up like that. And Zel— Miss Fisk said they could do something similar with me. Bind it up in something. But she didn't exactly say what that meant." He paused for a second, obviously uncomfortable. "And I'm not sure whether it's... I mean, whether it'll work. There's a pretty substantial difference between a ship and a man, I would think, but it's... the best idea they've got, I suppose. At least they have an idea now, anyway," he concluded, forcing a bit of lightness back to his tone, though it did not seem natural by any means.

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   Evander Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Well, he hadn’t protested the thought of keeping it from Charity with some desire to fill their niece in on all the details, which was good. As was the fact that he had been observing the instructions and staying in his flat - how long did Alfred ever go without setting foot on his ship otherwise? (Evander scarcely dared imagine what might have happened to him if he’d not turned back to the English port and instead continued on his voyage with a cursed artifact aboard, though.)

He listened intently to the progress they were making on the curse, wishing he was more of an expert in curses, and could offer any kind of reliable advice. It was not the sort of thing that the Improper Use of Magic ever dealt with personally though, not practically; although if Evander got his hands on the perpetrators, justice would certainly be swift. In any case, for half a beat he had thought of making the suggestion of just sinking the damn ship, but there didn’t seem much sense in airing it, not when they would evidently consider that if and when it was an option, and if anyone said as much to Alfred he would prefer it not to be him. Something they said about not poking the bear, wasn’t it?

Besides, it sounded like those working on the case had a plan of action now. “Well, that’s a start, I’m sure.” Evander wasn’t sure how promising it sounded, not filtered through his brother’s tone which lacked an ounce of conviction - but it was a plan of action. And he trusted whoever the Ministry had appointed to be best served to carry it out. Only...

How to, ah, best phrase it? Dare he? Evander had been drumming his fingers lightly on the table until his consciousness caught the fidgeting and promptly stamped it out. Still, if Alfred had mentioned her first, it was as suitable a time as any, and the least contrived he would ever have to be about it. “Can I ask about... your, er, assocation with Miss Fisk?” He sounded out, shooting Alfred a meaningful look but feeling awkward about it all the same. Whatever was going on between them... he had largely preferred not to ruminate on it, but plainly there was something. Evander just didn’t know whether it would make her best or worst placed to be the one with Alfred’s fate resting in her hands - and, to be perfectly honest, he was fraught with worry either way.

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Alfred ought to have expected a question about Zelda, given their last interaction — and particularly since he'd just slipped up on calling her by the proper name, half a moment ago. Still, he'd been hoping Evander's hesitancy to do anything that would lead to awkwardness might save him from needing to launch into a conversation he didn't really want to have. He knew he ought to tell Evander something about Zelda, particularly if they were actually going to go through with her plan to just announce a courtship once he was curse-free. They were already running the risk of alienating everyone in her family for the foreseeable future; they didn't need to start distancing his, too (though it might be argued that Alfred and Evander had already done a fairly good job of distancing themselves, honestly, without any interventions from young women).

Still, he was reluctant. He didn't want to tell Evander what the plan actually was before it was carried out, because Evander would only try to talk him out of it. That, and Alfred wasn't sure he even knew enough of what Zelda had in mind to talk about it. And even if he did, it wasn't as though they had exactly committed to anything yet. What if she got cold feet and changed her mind? It might be better to just leave Evander out of the loop until Alfred was quite certain that there was a loop. But since Evander had asked, his options on the subject were limited. Alfred had no particular intention to lie about anything.

"Uh, yeah," he said, poking at a bit of untouched food on his plate in order to avoid making eye contact. "Sure."

He left it at that. Allowing Evander to ask questions, after all, did not leave him any obligation to launch into a summary of his history with Zelda — and even if it did, Alfred wouldn't have known where to start.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander fought the instinct to roll his eyes when Alfred agreed to explain and then made no effort to without first hearing a question, when of course Evander had only said ‘can I ask’ to be polite about it! It wasn’t as though he wanted to ask for all the gossip in its gory detail; but when this young woman had his brother’s life in her hands he ought to be able to understand the full picture, he thought.

(Also she worked for the Ministry, and Evander needed to have a strategy of how to proceed should they ever cross paths in the atrium, or somewhere. To glare at her disapprovingly, or not to glare?)

But if he had hoped Alfred would do him a favour and unravel the mystery, his brother had not taken the bait. Probably he could guess that this was not Evander’s natural comfort zone.

“You said - at the hospital, you said that you tried to marry her,” Evander began, although he was aware that this was not a question. Still, it had come as a shock, and however distant they were as brothers, the idea that Alfred had been that close to marrying anyone was probably not supposed to be that much of a surprise. So - it hadn’t been public, then. Much as he ignored local gossipmongering, he was certain he’d have heard something about that. “When was that?”

Alfred had also said that it hadn’t worked out. And yet, when Evander had walked in on them her head had been on Alfred’s shoulder, so. How did that make sense. “And, er, you - but the two of you still seem - close?”

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"Well," Alfred said hesitantly, wondering how much he ought to say here. It was not entirely accurate to say that he'd tried to marry her, after all, but it wasn't entirely inaccurate, either. The only thing he had formally done was ask to court her, and been soundly rebuffed. He'd been willing to marry her on several occasions, once out of a sense of honor and obligation (if there had been trouble, as they'd put it, in the wake of their night together before his departure for the Avalon expedition), and more recently out of genuine affection, but he wasn't sure whether he'd ever actually come out and said so explicitly, to either her or anyone else. Had he mentioned it to Ari Fisk during the hospital closet confrontation? He couldn't remember, but it hardly mattered now. He didn't want to explain to Evander that he'd been prepared to run off to some foreign country with Zelda in order to avoid her family, and he certainly wasn't going to bring up anything about the night in his cabin, or the aftermath of it.

"I asked to court her, anyway," he explained awkwardly. "Which is as far as it got, since her father said no. About a year ago. I, uh... well, her whole family is Jewish, and I guess I managed to accidentally pick some Jewish holiday to stop by her house on, and her whole family was there. It was murder," he continued with a flush. "So they don't... particularly like me, any of them. And there's a million of them," he complained. "She has, no joke, ten siblings. And they were all there. I'm lucky the damned Minister of Magic wasn't there, too."

Honestly, Alfred had made a good deal of mistakes over the course of his relationship with Zelda, but he still didn't think he'd done anything to deserve that. Having an audience while asking for something you desperately wanted was one thing; having an audience while someone you had never met rejected that request was something else entirely.

"But, uh... yeah, we're still... close," he said, with some difficulty. Again, he wasn't sure how much to divulge, here. If they went through with this plan to announce a courtship without warning, Evander would probably think he'd been intentionally obfuscating if he didn't admit to at least some sort of plan, but he couldn't just lay it out. "I, uhm," he continued awkwardly, "I might try again someday. Maybe."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

“Dear Merlin,” Evander uttered, at Alfred recounting what sounded like possibly the most disastrous attempted courtship of which he’d ever heard. (Not that this said much, in itself, given Evander’s unfamiliarity of the process in anything more than theory.)

But Evander understood mortification very well, and each one of the elements of that story alone made him redden just imagining it. Indeed, he was suddenly looking back at every Fisk he’d ever had a meeting with or passed in the hallways of the Ministry, or even just the street, and wondering whether all they had been doing was connecting relative dots and remembering that encounter with Alfred. Just out of second-hand embarrassment, Evander might never be able to look Konstantin Fisk in the eye again.

Still, he shook his head in genuine sympathy, surprised and impressed that Alfred’s attachment to Zelda Fisk had recovered from that. He was less impressed by the suggestion that Alfred might give it another go - but even on a better day and not in front of the whole Fisk family, Evander was seeing glaring flaws in that plan, ones for which he sorely hoped Alfred had found solutions - but besides a frown, all he asked was, “Is that wise?”

But really his concerns about that were less immediate than others, because Alfred wouldn’t have occasion to get into more trouble if he died from the lingering curse first, and that was all bound up with Zelda Fisk as well. “And - I mean - do you think Miss Fisk is really the best person to be working on the curse for you?” It seemed dangerous to him, in more ways than one. She was very young, and probably emotional; she was certainly very involved.

It did not necessarily seem the safest course to him. What if they were both a little blinded by one another, and weren’t seeing the stakes clearly?

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The following 1 user Likes Evander Darrow's post:1 user Likes Evander Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

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Alfred sighed at Evander's questions. Both of them were legitimate, and things that he had been concerned with long before Evander brought them up over the dinner table. The amount of time and energy he'd invested worrying about them already, though, did not mean he had any ready response to either.

"No, probably not," he answered wearily in response to the first. "But I'm not, either. Wise, that is." He'd tried to be, for a time. In the immediate aftermath of the disastrous passover visit, he'd put his nose to the grindstone and tried to save every sickle away so that he could afford to transform himself into a Presentable Future Husband. That, however, was a task that no amount of money was going to accomplish. He could have rented a house, or gone out and gotten well-tailored suits and a haircut, but he'd still be a sailor at the end of the day. And even if he went and found another career, like Evander sometimes mentioned, nothing was going to erase the whole potential cannibalism thing from the memory of the general public. He'd eventually realized that there was no amount of time or effort that would make him any more amenable a suitor in the eyes of most of Zelda's family, but he honestly wasn't sure whether she had realized that, yet. She'd said she didn't mind shocking or alienating them with their latest scheme, so long as she didn't cause a public scandal — but he worried that when it actually happened, or when her relationship with her father and siblings hadn't neatly knit itself back together in a matter of a few weeks, she would feel differently. She'd regret sticking with him, but it would be too late to go back and repair things.

"And..." he began uncomfortably, shifting to the second of Evander's questions. He fidgeted in his seat for a moment as he tried to consider what to say. "She's very good at what she does," he began diplomatically. When it had just been the Voyager's fate hanging in the balance, Alfred hadn't had a single reservation about leaving it in her capable hands. When it came to him, though, he recognized that Evander was right. "She's... well, it's not as though there's any other option," he pointed out. "It's not as though she'd ask to be reassigned, and let someone else handle it. And I can't just write to her boss and tell her we're —" here Alfred drew himself up short, not sure what to say. He opened his mouth once, twice, to try and find an appropriate word. Eventually what he settled on was to just recycle the word Evander had decided on earlier: "Close. That could ruin her career, or her reputation."

The following 2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post:2 users Like J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Elias Grimstone, Zelda Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander sighed slightly, but more at the complexity of the situation than at Alfred’s response to it, for once. ‘I’m not wise’: at least his brother had some self-awareness. (Evander hoped Alfred wasn’t fishing for him to disagree. Evander was not about to lie about things like that.)

And it wasn’t as though there was anything Evander could do about it, besides.

Nor could he do anything helpful on the matter of the curse, though there he desperately wanted to be of use: he might have made inquiries to find someone else if, as Alfred said, there was any other option at this stage of the investigation. “No, I know,” Evander admitted quietly, “I don’t want that. I just - hope she can keep a clear head about this.” Miss Fisk was only trying to help, too, and meddling more in her affairs would not help matters. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still uneasy about it. He suspected he would have been uneasy no matter who was on the case. And perhaps it was good, then, that at least they could be sure Miss Fisk cared enough to do everything she could?

“And... be careful, I suppose. Please.” In Alfred’s case, Evander didn’t think this went without saying, to stop and think before he did anything, especially when his life was on the line. Evander hadn’t planned on saying anything else, but the simmering feeling of uselessness demanded it, so: “I’m only sorry I can’t help.”

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"Yeah, me too," Alfred admitted. This conversation was feeling heavier by the minute, though, and he didn't much care for that. Zelda had ideas about how to fix the Voyager and maybe about how to fix him, so this was hardly the moment for doom and gloom. In a joking tone, then, he added, "I think she's much more likely to keep her head than you would be, in the same position. She really is very good at what she does."

He paused and turned his attention momentarily to his plate, trying to read the air. The comment didn't really seem sufficient to get the atmosphere away from the rather morbid sentiment of be careful, please that Evander had just expressed, so Alfred felt obliged to come up with another joke. "If I do shuffle off the mortal coil, at least that will solve the problem of how to convince her father to let me court her. Or — not solve, I suppose, but I won't be worrying about it any more."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The face of outrage Evander made at that remark about keeping one’s head was mild enough that it would pass for being in jest... although Evander was mildly resentful of the truth all the same. “Speak for yourself,” he retorted - rather feebly, “I’ve never had trouble keeping my head.” Yes, yes, so he was more tightly-wound than some, but - oh. He didn’t have a but.

“Though I suppose with ten siblings, one must have a high tolerance for troublesome antics.” Evander said, first about Miss Fisk’s capabilities. He only had the one brother now, and that was already rather a lot to put up with. As for the matter of her father... “Or ten children, for that matter.” That said, he had seen Mr. Fisk, the father, about the Ministry before, and he had always struck him as quite orderly, for all that he probably dealt with in such a sprawling family as that. Perhaps he was a little like Uncle Hamish, and rather easygoing under all that?

Evander hoped so, else he didn’t see how Alfred would stand a chance.

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Alfred frowned at Evander's comment, considering. "Maybe," he allowed, because it seemed to make sense on the surface of it. From his quite limited interaction with Brannon Fisk, however, Alfred hadn't gotten the impression that he had any degree of tolerance whatsoever for troublesome antics. Zelda had always said her father was stern, and strict — but she did have a lot of stories from her childhood that might qualify, in Evander's mind, as troublesome antics, so perhaps his brother's guess wasn't far off. How would Evander react if, for instance, Charity took a rowboat out on the Irvingly lake and declared her intention to be a pirate? Probably not any more gracefully than Brannon Fisk had when Zelda had done that as a child, and likely a good deal worse.

"He certainly doesn't have any tolerance for sailors," he commented wistfully. "I might as well have said I collected snapdragons for a living. Except if snapdragons had some dubious ethical connotations," he mused. The implication, he was fairly certain, was that he was both financially and morally unfit to court Zelda, though the latter hadn't been stated explicitly.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Alfred didn’t sound convinced about Mr. Fisk, and by the sounds of it, he was probably right not to be. Just as Mr. Fisk was perfectly at liberty to have his reservations - Evander was Alfred’s own brother and heavens, he shared them - so it was, he was sorry to say, a little tempting to laugh. Or, indeed, to say those four triumphant words like the badge of honour they were: I told you so. If Alfred had only listened to him years ago, hmm?

“Yes, well,” Evander said noncommittally, telling himself that he ought to be the encouraging one rather than the bad guy for once, at least while Alfred had potential death looming over him to contend with already. “I can’t say I envy you if you do try to convince him otherwise -” He began with a sympathetic wince, privately sure that unless Alfred drastically altered the course of his life, his chances were not going to be much improved, but... his brother had already realised this, so no need to rub it in. “But you’re a Gryffindor, so I’m sure you’ll think of something.” (Shame Alfred was a Gryffindor, else he might recognise a lost cause when he saw one. Certainly anyone else would have had the self-preservation instincts to walk away.)

He couldn’t say he was sure his brother would believe his sincerity - he was not much of an actor - but Evander thought he had done an admirable job of keeping a straight face at this last: “Perhaps he’ll change his mind if he has the time to get to know you.”

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   Cassius Lestrange, Ophelia Devine

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Alfred couldn't help but laugh at Evander's suggestion that Zelda's father would warm to the idea given 'time to get to know him.' Time was one thing they'd had an abundance of since his first attempt to ask to court Zelda, and Brannon Fisk had shown exactly no interest in getting to know him. Nor was Alfred convinced that it would do much good if he did; what on earth could the two possibly have in common, other than a fondness for Zelda?

"That's quite charitable of you to think so," Alfred said lightly. "But I'm not as sure. Perhaps he'd only like me less." This was mostly a joke — Alfred was still capable of putting on a nice, respectable show of things. He didn't often feel inclined to do so, of course, but he could likely avoid offending his potential father-in-law.

After they got past this next bit, of course, which would absolutely offend him. But Evander didn't need to know about that — so in response to his comment about Gryffindors, Alfred only said, "Yes, I'm sure you're right. I'll think of something."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER