25 October, 1893 — London Ballet

"It's been too long," Oz complained the moment he reached the inside of her dressing room. He was reaching to put his hands on her before the door had even properly closed behind them. He'd been to the ballet thrice since his campaign had started, so he'd seen her in this costume plenty — he wanted to see her out of it. Truthfully he hadn't given a good deal of thought to how campaigning would impact his life before he'd committed and announced it, but even if he had thought it through he wouldn't have anticipated he would have been quite as busy as he had been. At this point he could safely say that his efforts had paid off, he supposed, but during the campaign itself it had seemed like toil without purpose more often than not. Was it all the pent-up emotion of the campaign that had him feeling particularly antsy now, or was it what was coming in November? One week away, now — less than a week, counting by hours. Right around the corner, and coming whether or not he was ready for it.

"I've only got two hours," he announced apologetically, even as he pulled her into his arms and ran a hand down the edge of her costume's bodice. "Maybe three, at a stretch. So let's make the most of it, hm?"

He'd send her another bouquet to make up for the brevity of the visit, he decided — much as he wanted to see Sophia, Sina was home tonight and would notice if he stayed out suspiciously late. Maybe he'd send her a bottle of wine, too... whatever it took to soothe her feelings for the moment. They were on the other side of things now, he hoped, or they would be soon. The campaign was over, and the transition period was bound to be equally rocky, but surely once he was actually Minister things would settle down somewhat? Of course, things would never be normal again, but at least now he could stop campaigning.

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@"Sophia Voss"

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   Sophia Lissington

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MJ is the light of my life <3

“I know,” Sophia lamented with a sigh as she slipped into his arms. The witch flicked her fingertips over his shoulder, snapping the door closed before she turned her full attention to kissing him. There was comfort in the familiar, and their arrangement over this past year suited her well. The only indication of something different happening was their less frequent visits, or more rushed encounters. They scarcely spoke about the election, much less what would happen if he were elected. Something about it felt like it’d bring out some inevitable truth… Sophia always suspected something would draw them apart someday. They were never really meant to last. That ‘something’ could be an election, or… it could be something else.

“Tsk, always in such a rush,” she shivered in his hands. Less from the touch, more from jitters she was wholly unaccustomed to feeling. Before they got carried away, she ought to tell him. It’d be much harder to tell him later. But also, if he was going to be angry with her regardless, what would the harm be…?

The witch bit the inside of her lip, stalling by removing her costume’s headpiece and letting her long hair roll down her shoulders. Her head tipped to the side for ease of access as he talked about making the most of it. If he only knew.

Already he made quick work of her bodice, and she was reminded of how little time they actually had if the news was true. A few months before their consequences might rear its ugly head. Sophia’s stomach twisted with nerves.

“There’s something we ought to talk about, too…” she ventured. Careful less because she was afraid of his reaction, more because she felt ill-equipped to understand even her own perspective on the matter. Like a delicate gold chain, hard to unravel. “Before, or after.”

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thank you gin for the set<3

Oz ran his fingers along her bare skin as she revealed it, following his fingertips with his eyes and finally with a string of light kisses. "Good news or bad news?" he asked lightly. Talk could mean a lot of not-excellent things, and he suspected that whatever she wanted to talk about involved the election, which was the last thing he wanted to devote any brain power to. Until she confirmed one way or another, though, he was going to pretend that she might be referring to something that wasn't such a drag.

"Good news now, bad news never," he teased. He stopped kissing her long enough to glance around the room, thinking through which piece of furniture would be best transfigured into a bed for the purposes of the next hour or so... or whether he even wanted to bother with that, or whether it might be more fun to just have her up against a wall or bent over the dressing table. There was something to be said for the spontaneity of this kind of liaison, and the extra charge that came from not having everything sorted out before things got hot and heavy.

(He had already mostly moved on, mentally, from whatever she wanted to talk about. If it was important enough to discuss now, she'd bring it up again).

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Good news now, bad news never. Well that was the question, wasn’t it? The circumstances were sour to begin with, and now that he really was the minister-elect… Sophia realized that she’s delayed the matter long enough, finding excuses in how busy they both were. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. Not good news, not bad news, she reminded herself. Something that was simply happening.

“The timing couldn’t be worse,” she stalled, diffusive as she struggled to come up with the backbone. It was something that weighed heavily on the former Gryffindor, a woman who typically prided herself on her conviction. Oz kissed her with little turbulence given the new title he had, and Sophia sighed into it, ruminating on how to break the news. In the meantime her arms slung around his shoulders, a bit more sentimental than usual. Almost like the sort of kiss one says goodbye with. It really depends on how he took the news.

Sophia brought her hands to his temples, catching his head and leveling her bright blue gaze against his dark eyes. She pursed her lips, weary. “You must promise to not be cross with me,” she asked cryptically instead. But Sophia knew if she had his word, she would at least have something to hold him to.

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thank you gin for the set<3

Sophia hadn't moved on as quickly as he had, and while she'd allowed him to kiss her the intimacy was short-lived. It took a good deal of self-control for Ozymandias not to groan at the interruption. That wouldn't have gone over well, he could tell, because whatever she wanted to talk about was serious — but he wanted nothing to do with serious at the moment. He had enough serious outside of this room. In a week he'd be making decisions that affected the entire country; people were needling him about who he might appoint to the Wizengamot; two separate reporters had asked for specific details on his plans for voting reform. His youngest sister was still having trouble walking normally, after the dragon attack, and his mother's skin was still red and blotchy where she had been burned. He'd come here to get away from all of that. He didn't want to have talks tonight; he just wanted comfort and ease, the way things had been in the beginning.

"Oh, come on, don't," he complained, still trying to keep his tone light — not giving way to her mood yet, even though she had taken hold of his head and seemed determined to derail his positive mood. "Don't sound so somber. What could you possibly have done to make me cross with you?"

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Despite her very best effort to be prudent, Sophia smirked. Don’t, he whined petulantly, with his dark mop of hair askew from her mussing. She took no pleasure in this, the burden weighing on her shoulders for… well, a few weeks now, as the endorsements rolled in and she kept seeing his name in the paper.

As much as she wished it were not happening, it was.

“It’s not what I’ve done,” she pointed out defensively, letting her fingers roam into his hair and play with his head, appreciating his warm embrace. Against all her better judgment, she kissed him again. There was no world where she thought he would continue to be as affectionate as this, because she knew the sort of man he was. (Well, thought she knew— Oz didn’t exactly strike her as a ministerial type when they first met, and he certainly was always full of surprises – perhaps her single figment of hope.) The type to dislike complications. Their relationship was always one bound by reasonable expectations of simplicity and this… was…

“It concerns the both of us. Shall we have a drink?” Sophia disentangled herself reluctantly, but she couldn’t proceed with this weighing on her conscience. Without further invitation, she went for the good Irish whiskey kept aside for him.

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thank you gin for the set<3

As she kissed him again a response sprang to mind, one that he almost voiced when they broke apart: love me, and I won't be cross. It wasn't a serious statement, of course, but he was becoming increasingly desperate to put off whatever mood-killing conversation she wanted to have, and at the moment hyperbolic romance seemed the surest way to do it. But he caught himself: if she was intending to tell him they were through (as he was beginning to suspect she would), then bandying about words like love me wouldn't do him any favors.

Was it the election? It made a certain kind of sense. Being involved with the Minister of Magic was different than having a tryst with an unassuming member of society. Things would be different now: he'd have less time to spend on leisure of any sort, and more scrutiny. Perhaps she'd reassessed the risk-to-reward ratio for this equation and decided it was no longer worth pursuing. He hadn't expected it, but he also couldn't claim to be blindsided by the idea. They'd never discussed the campaign in any depth, and he certainly hadn't asked her permission before he'd announced his candidacy. She hadn't signed up for this.

But he hadn't come to the ballet tonight expecting to be rejected. He'd been expecting to relieve stress, not compound it. He wasn't ready for this conversation. And now she was pouring whiskey. A conversation indeed it was.

"I'm not thirsty," he protested, still trying for a touch of humor. "Come on, Sophia, come to bed. We'll make time to talk after. I promise." He didn't have any serious hope that she would agree, after how she'd been acting so far, but he had to at least make one last attempt to pretend this wasn't happening... though whether he'd actually be able to get it off of his mind now was a whole other matter.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Oz's protest was too slow, Sophia had already motioned for the bottle to pour itself out into their glasses. “Bed? I thought you had no time…” she challenged, knowing neither of them were here for sleep. And neither of them were thirsty either, it seemed. Whiskey had a habit of leaving fire down her throat and making her a nauseous these last few weeks. Still the woman wordlessly brought over their drinks, expecting it’d be helpful soon enough.

The fact that Ozy was minister-elect was, on some base level even for someone as apolitical as she, rather impressive. And since the damage was already done, there was no real reason for her to impress their new problem upon him so soon. Oz seemed tired, in the way that she was also tired. They both deserved a day of rest, really, but who knows when she'll see him again? At that rate...

The mental math nagged at her. At the last second, the dancer didn’t take her seat across from him but rather settled in Oz's lap, mainly because it was there, still inviting. And a man’s embrace – critical government official or not– felt reassuring.

The witch sighed, pondering how to broach the topic as she gazed down at him. “Do I look different at all?” she mused. The truth was that she felt utterly ragged. Between strenuous rehearsals for their most busy season of the year, daily treks to visit her sick daughter, and newfound studies– Sophia felt ill all the time. And yet, the show’s costumer noted that Soph seemed quite… healthy. “...It’s not important,” she added hastily, because if she was showing, he’d say something, wouldn't he? It wasn’t noticeable. She hardly knew... (Sophia knew.)

“I’m… not sure what to do,” she finally admitted, feeling stalled and worried at the insurmountable hump of just saying it. Making it known. He would be the first, and only. It was only right that he was, even if… even if… she didn’t want to know what he had to say. “Your… new position. It puts quite a spotlight on your personal life, don’t you think?” A spotlight that would only make this all so much worse.

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thank you gin for the set<3

Of course she wouldn't let him get away with suggesting bed, and he'd known that before he even tried it. There seemed to be no getting out of this... or at least he thought so for a moment, until she perched in his lap. Not the ideal position if he'd guessed correctly that her purpose tonight was to end their affair. He was evidently surprised, but took the opportunity to wrap his free arm around her and let his fingertips trail over the top of her thigh.

She asked if she looked different, and Oz's brow furrowed. To be honest he wasn't sure he would notice if she had, since he'd seen her so infrequently recently and he'd always had at least ten things on his mind any time they were together. But had something happened? Was that what she wanted to talk about, some misfortune that had befallen her? He preferred that to his first thought, but it didn't really fit with the clues she'd given him so far. Nothing she'd done, something that affected both of them... If this was something else like what had happened to her daughter this summer, there would have been no reason to share it with him except to get sympathy. What could happen in her life that affected him, really?

And then she mentioned spotlights and he again worried that this was heading towards a break. "I thought you liked spotlights," he teased, unable to avoid the joke though he knew full well what she was talking about. "But no, I don't think it does," he lied. "Maybe for a few weeks, until it's no longer the most recent thing to talk about and everyone's interests shift somewhere else. There are only so many variations Witch Weekly can write on Ozymandias Dempsey and the Curse of Childlessness. They'll get bored and move on."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

It was the sort of tease that pulled a small smile out of Sophia as he played dumb because yes, she did like spotlights. Though she did not necessarily think Ozy was prepared to share the limelight with her, particularly when the newsworthy bit could be about him.

(Not that she intended to take this to the news. Yet. At all? Who knows? Sophia still hadn’t settled about how she felt about this whole matter, other than the fact that she felt ill to think about his reaction. No doubt he would press her into decisions. Sophia was not prepared for decisions.)

“You don’t think?” She echoed, dancing around the topic because she still hadn’t warmed up to talking about it, much less the consequences of her actions. Her lips pursed as he carried on, and she stiffened at mention of the curse of childlessness. Sophia reached for a small sip of her drink. It tasted like acid down her throat and she wrinkled her nose, instantly regretting even the small sip. “And we both know the curse of childlessness has no truth to it,” she observed, a great regret for her indeed.

Now they both knew that a Minister would always have something of interest to say to the people. Ozy couldn’t not have the spotlight on him, and in fact, Sophia would guess that he’s grown to quite enjoy it in these last few weeks of campaigning. It was a wonder that no one’s caught on to them already. Merlin knew they were not overly discreet at the theater during the beginning of their… situation. “Are you not worried if people discover us?” If there was no us, there was no problem, was there?

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thank you gin for the set<3

Oz's brow creased briefly at her response to the curse of childlessness. She was right, but he didn't remember ever having confided in her about how he and his wife had purposefully avoided children. As a general rule he didn't talk about his wife at all to her, but he must have done at some point if she was making quips like that. Well, that wasn't so strange — she had children, he had none, it was the sort of thing that might have come up. They'd been seeing each other over a year and during their trysts they were frequently drinking (or otherwise indulging in substances of some variety) so it wasn't entirely remarkable that he didn't remember having discussed it.

"Which people?" He asked, with one eyebrow arched. The entire ballet company knew already, he assumed. That manager of hers was always smug when he spoke to Oz, as though the pair of them shared a secret, and if he knew then everyone did. But there was a difference between ballet dancers knowing and the society matrons knowing and his wife knowing. To be quite frank he only cared about secrecy towards two ends: first, that whoever else knew, his wife did not; second, that no one who knew was inclined to make things unpleasant for Soph. If he could be assured that both of those ends would be achieved, he'd print it as a footnote in the society section of the Prophet himself.

He sat back with a shrug and swirled his glass a bit flippantly. "We'll just ensure they don't."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

“Which people,” she repeated him again, this time incredulous, because in her mind all people could be a menace. “Beyond the entire ballet company, you mean.” The brunette pondered it with her thumb and index finger rubbing the bridge of her nose while she scrunched up her face. Usually Sophia found his flippant demeanor endearing, a departure from the stodgy upper class types she hated. At the minute she found it simply exhausting. We will, he said, confirming her suspicions like a nail in the coffin. The man had no plans to stop seeing her. Yet.

“I am concerned about society at large,” she carried on evasively. “And what this all means for me.” Worry edged into her voice without Sophia noticing. What does this all mean for her? Her career? Her lifestyle? She didn’t want to hear what he thought of it but at the same time, someone needed to know, and he was the only one who should.

“...Promise me you won’t be cross with me,” she asked again, more insistent than last time. Sophia's hand slipped up to cover her eyes like it might make her blind to the fact that she can’t keep losing her nerve forever. The ballerina disentangled herself from Oz to come to a stand, and moved to her vanity where she could rifle for a cigarette. Perhaps this might calm her nerves without making her sick. Or is she just going to be sick the entire time no matter what, like she was with Julian?

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thank you gin for the set<3

She was running away from him as she talked. She kept doing that, today — she'd pulled back when he'd been kissing her in the doorway, and put a table between them, and gone to fetch a drink, and now she was going for a cigarette... all just pretense, he decided, because what she was really doing in each instance was running away from him. It was unlike her. She was anxious, and unwilling to let him brush those anxieties aside. This was supposed to be a reprieve from all that, he thought desperately, but he couldn't fault her for it. She hadn't asked for him to be elected Minister.

"That's the second time you've said that," he pointed out. He abandoned the drink at the table and rose from his chair to follow her across the room, and gently laid his hand along her waist. "It doesn't have to mean anything for you," he said, soft and reassuring. "We'll be discreet. No one will know. And if someone does — well, I have to assume being Minister of Magic comes with some perks," he joked dryly. "I'll protect you. I'll take care of you, Sophia."

Would she believe him? He couldn't offer her any proof, obviously. And if she didn't believe him — that he would, that he could, stand between her and utter disaster if the cards fell that way — then he knew what she was going to say next. He didn't want things to end — certainly not tonight — but he had to admit that he understood. She kept saying not to be cross with her, and if she really did intend to end things, he didn't think he could be.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

"Is it?" Sophia played aloof as he pointed out her insistence. Merlin did she wish he would answer the question, because she convinced herself by now that if he simply said of course I won't be angry she'd finally have the courage to say it. To add injury, she didn't get very far in her hunt for something to calm her nerves. The cigarette dangled from her lips and she couldn't quite find her wand, and couldn't focus enough to conjure a quick spark with her fingertips.

Oz snuck up on her, and she spun around in place in surprise. The hand on her waist didn't surprise her, but the earnest look on his face and voice absolutely did. The cigarette nearly dropped from her mouth; Sophia had at least enough presence of mind to whisk it away as she leaned back on the vanity to peer up at Ozy's face. Had this been when they first met, she would've laughed at his promise to protect and care for her.

Now, she was silent and serious. I'll take care of you, Sophia.

"Alright," she determined after a long pause, voice scarcely above a whisper now that she made her decision. "Ozy, I..." Say it. Just say it. Great gods above say it. Say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say it say--"--I'm pregnant," the words tumbled out clumsy and heavy and dropped like an anvil on their feet, damage done.

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thank you gin for the set<3

She said alright but Oz was unsure he had managed to convince her of anything; her expression was still too full of worry for him to believe this was the end of the conversation. It seemed to take an age before she continued — or maybe it was only in retrospect that it took an age, because after she'd said it time seemed to go a little crooked. Pregnant. No wonder she'd been fleeing from him all night; no wonder his cursory pleas for her to come back to his arms hadn't been enough to push the concern aside for the evening. Shit. What timing. This would have been problematic at any point, of course, but wedged between the end of the campaign and his swearing in as Minister the timing simply couldn't have been any worse.

"Fuck," he breathed. Without thinking he withdrew his hand from her waist so that he could run it heavily over one side of his temple. Half a beat later he realized how that must have looked from her perspective, pulling back as soon as she'd admitted to it. He'd just told her he would take care of her, if everything started to crack, and she hadn't admitted to the news until she'd heard those reassurances — he could not be drawing back now. He reached out for her again, one hand moving to each of her arms, then sighed as he considered how to start unraveling this. He'd just said that he would protect her and he'd meant it, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind. He'd been thinking of rumors, discovery, blackmail — the sort of things that could be fixed with money and influence. This was... more complicated, at least on the surface of it. It was certainly something that he couldn't shield her from — any solution here would be one she had at least an equal share in. So perhaps he'd already missed the mark on that promise to protect her.

"Alright, we've got this," he said — more or less just a verbal version of putting his hands on her arms, a reassurance that shocked as he might have been he was not about to bolt and leave her left to sort this out alone. "Have you looked in to how much it would cost yet?"

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MJ is the light of my life <3

For a moment Sophia wondered if she had said anything at all, because time stretched out endlessly between them where neither said or did anything. Sophia even forgot to breathe, a burning ache in her lungs reminding her of the need. The ballerina took a shuddering breath as his hand recoiled, heart racing as though she were in the middle of a dozen pirouettes. Finding herself a bit dizzy, she trained her gaze on a single spot that stayed stable while the whole world turned – a button on Oz’s shirt.

Soph could forgive him for that reaction, it wasn’t much different from her own. “Terrible timing,” she joked wryly. The timing was never good, but with his new position and her busiest season coming up, this really couldn’t have landed at a worse time. This also meant the baby might share a birthday close to her daughter’s.

Ozy’s touch brought Sophia back to the present moment. She glanced down to his hands, first his left, then his right, then looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. Again with the we. Then he asked a question, so in earnest she practically missed it. He could see the moment it registered, when the corners of her painted lips tipped down.

“The cost of what?” A man with good hearing might hear the warning like a snake’s rattle. Sophia shrugged off one of his hands, but didn’t move yet. There weren’t many places to go in this small dressing room, anyway, and no more avoiding this. Still, she felt stifled. “I’ve tried to not think about it at all, to be frank,” she admitted quietly.

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thank you gin for the set<3