December 3rd, 1892

Ivy couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned and double-checked the security spells on her house, but there was nothing for it. She checked the time on her watch: midnight. She pulled her long coat over her nightgown and stepped out on the porch in her slippers, and locked the door behind her. Without much thought as to why, although she'd been considering for a while, she walked down her stairs and to the left and knocked twice, quietly, on Dorset's door.

He'd only hear her if she was awake, too - or so she thought. She didn't know the layout in there. When the door creaked open, Ivy shrugged at him. "Evening," she said.

---

Jack Dorset

  

---

set by MJ

The knock was soft enough that if Jack had been asleep or even just in his room he might not have heard it. But when it came he didn’t hesitate to leave the chair he was fruitlessly trying to sleep in and answer it. In fact, it didn’t really occur to him not to answer. That he made it to the door with his wand was purely habit. It also didn’t occur to him that it wasn’t really decent to answer the door without a shirt. As it was he stood in his open door way with a dressing gown over one shoulder and a hot water bottle slung on the other blinking with bleary confusion at his neighbor.

"Might be morning at this rate" he said with a glance toward the street and the lamps that lined it. With a shiver, he finally registered the cold and made a face. "D'you need something?" he asked, stepping back to make room for her to come in if she wanted.

---

  

---

He was shirtless. Ivy blinked at this, and shifted her coat, as if that would make her nightgown more of a solid layer, or as if it would materialize a shirt on him. She stepped into the gap he allowed and waved at him to close the door behind her; she hated to be cold. "I don't need anything," she said.

---

  

---

set by MJ

He watched as she passed, waiting for ... something ;Whatever he was missing that would make sense of why she'd come knocking at whatever hour this was.  With the door shut he shrugged the other half of his dressing gown over his bad shoulder against the cold draft that had been let into the house.  "Well... then, d'you want something?" he asked as he scrubbed a hand over his face like he could message the sleepy confusion from his brain. 

"Tea?  I'm pretty sure I owe you a beer?"  he shuffled through the simple but tidy bachelor pad toward the kitchen, dropping the hot water bottle on an indiscriminate flat surface along the way.  "There's some -"  he waved vaguely at a basket had some kind of baked good he'd remember in a moment... muffins or scones or something. 

---

  

---

There was a tiny bit of stubble on his face. Ivy was aware that she was being desperately rude and — maybe just desperate, but she didn't think that Dorset would really mind. If she acted like this was normal long enough, he'd probably come around to believing her.

"I'll take beer, if you have it," she said, following him into his small kitchen. And, as an offering, she gave him a truth: "I couldn't sleep."

---

  

---

set by MJ

Jack was still sleep-dazed but the simple explanation eased the weight of confusion that hung over him.  He nodded knowingly as he reached for a beer, opened it, and placed on a counter nearest her.  "That makes two of us." he said with a sigh and grabbed one for himself.  "D'you have a dumb shoulder too?"

---

  

---

Ivy's brow furrowed. "Dumb shoulder?" she asked, popping the cap off of her beer. She glanced between his; he didn't have a shirt on, so it was easy enough to see them both. Ivy took a sip.

---

  

---

set by MJ

"I hurt it doing something dumb?"  He gave a one-sided shrug as he opened his own bottle.  "It likes to bother me sometimes."  He raised the bottle in her general direction and took a drink.  The sore shoulder might be a handy reminder to never apprehend someone with his bare hands but he hoped his next life lesson would be less painful. 

He reached for a jumper that hung on a near by hook, left there to dry from the last time he did laundry, and pulled it on before falling heavily into one of the chairs at the little kitchen table.  Taking another swallow of his beer, he pushed out the other chair with his foot in case she wanted to sit. 

---

  

---

Ivy frowned. She had an impulse to tell Dorset to be more careful, but instead she realized again that he'd been shirtless, and flushed. She dropped into the chair across from him and took a sip of her beer in the hopes that it hid her expression. "Mine is more silly — I've gotten used to working overnight," she said, "And sometimes it's hard to switch back to sleep, when I'm not working."

This was partially true; also, sometimes when she could not sleep she remembered a time that the sky rained blood.

---

The following 1 user Likes Ivy Sandow's post:1 user Likes Ivy Sandow's post
   Jack Dorset

---

set by MJ

Jack nodded blankly.  That made enough sense that he didn't think too much on it.  "Never did like night shifts," he mused.

He sat back in his chair crossing his arms over his chest. "You're not worried at all that someone might've seen you come over here?  Dressed ... you know..."  She was covered but it was obvious she wasn't dressed dressed.  And also the slippers.

---

  

---

Ivy paused, and shook her head at him after a beat. "No one cares what I do," she said, finally. "The whole female auror thing covers most of it already."

---

  

---

set by MJ

He thought about that for a moment before nodding again, this time with a small shrug. It made sense enough to him. Warmed by the sweater, the drink, and maybe even the unexpected company, he sat there comfortably quiet until a soft snort of a laugh came.

"It'd be funny if I'm the one that ends up with a reputation outta this."

---

  

---

Ivy smiled at him, slow and self-pleased before she spoke. "You won't," she said. Reputations never stuck to men.

---

  

---

set by MJ

He wasn't expecting that face.  Her reaction made the idea even more amusing.  "That quick were you?  Kept to the shadows to protect my honor?"

---

  

---

Ivy snorted. "You do have an honorable energy about you," she said, and she wasn't sure whether or not it was an insult.

---

The following 1 user Likes Ivy Sandow's post:1 user Likes Ivy Sandow's post
   Seneca Lestrange

---

set by MJ

He leaned back with a self satisfied grin that his joke landed. "I try." Which wasn't strictly true but it felt like the right thing to say.

---

  

---