Comeuppance | Bae

Wednesday, May 16, 1923
4:45 PM
The Shores of the Black Lake

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"I guess I just don't understand."

He didn't. As usual. There was always something he didn't understand. Some new offense he'd gone and done that had twitched his girlfriend's nerves and left him to account for it. Kaitlyn Dwyer was...persistent. He and Rae both knew that, and the girl had had a thing for him since their first year. He'd indulged her for a time, finding she was a great snog and a good way to pass time - before he'd had a girlfriend.

Since then, Kaitlyn had never really let go.

Benji could admit it was annoying, and he knew in some way, that it bothered his girlfriend that Kaitlyn still liked him. But there was nothing Benji could do about that! The Ravenclaw knew Ruth Elliot was his girlfriend and had been for quite some time now. He'd never indulged her or led her to believe that he'd still hook up with her. Not in his mind anyway.

If Benji wanted to hook up with someone, he'd just do it, not beat around the bush for the better part of two years first.

"Look, she said I looked good after Quidditch practice, and all I said was 'thanks'. I didn't let her feel me up or anything." He sighed. He knew he could give a laundry list of the ways he hadn't betrayed his girlfriend, but none of them would mean anything to Rae until the girl backed off for good.

Like he had any control over that.

"What do you want me to do, Rae? Punch her? Pull her hair? Call her names? It's not worth that. Just ignore her."

Seriously, did it have to be this big of an issue? He didn't think so. Everyone knew he was dating Rae. Hell, they knew he was marrying Rae. At this point, it was pretty non-negotiable even if either of them wanted something different.

Which he didn't. And had made - in his mind - abundantly clear to Kaitlyn Dwyer multiple times over.

"I guess I just don't understand."

Rae reached for another pink peony, carefully plucking at the small leaves along its stem. She never looked at him. Her dark eyes focused on the flower while the half-finished crown sat atop her bent knees. By her feet, Echo pawed at the small heap of remaining flowers she'd gathered, interested in the bug that had climbed beneath. Occasionally, her gaze fell, just to make sure the feline wasn't in danger of shredding the flowers before she could make use of them. Her boyfriend – the boy who used to be her boyfriend – wasn't on her radar.

"Look, she said I looked good after Quidditch practice, and all I said was 'thanks'. I didn't let her feel me up or anything."

Funny, his story lacked a few details present in Kaitlyn's, but that was neither here nor there for the girl who'd already sent along her message with the girl who liked playing Castle Owl. If Benji wanted to continue entertaining the girl and her attention, then he was more than welcome to. It had been years of putting up with the obnoxiously persistant Ravenclaw...alone. Always alone. Benji liked to crack a cheeky grin and tell her that Kaitlyn was only being friendly. He liked to feign innocence and ignorance; he liked to pretend that she was innocent.

It was so easy to absolve himself once he planted the narrative that Kaitlyn had no motives to begin with. Then he was just the boy who was trying to be nice. Nothing wrong with being nice. Everyone liked nice guys. She was always the one who was over-exaggerating.

Always crazy. Always reading too much into what they both knew was happening while he continued to have the girl hovering around him, boosting his ego and filling whatever hole still happened to be left open within him.

If it was an itch that only Kaitlyn could scratch – why else would he refuse to firmly put her in her place and then maintain the line? – then Benji was more than free to continue as he was.

She was tired.

Tired of Kaitlyn finding her wherever she happened to be to tell her another story of the little liberties she took because her boyfriend never corrected her. Sure, he reminded her they were together before letting her hang around anyway. Every advance she made, he treated like a friendly gesture. Everyone knew he was her boyfriend, and everyone knew that if they smiled bright enough, he'd let them flirt and then insist he was the pious one who only stood there and let them because it was the right thing to do.

He could go be friends with the girl who respected neither his boundary nor his ex-girlfriend. She wouldn't stop him.

"What do you want me to do, Rae? Punch her? Pull her hair? Call her names? It's not worth that. Just ignore her."

She did ignore Kaitlyn, like she ignored him now. Her fingers weaved the stem in with the rest of the crown, her movements deft but gentle. That was the problem. Kaitlyn liked the back and forth. She liked believing there was still a competition, and so long as she could still get anything out of Benji, she'd happily run back to Rae, ready to throw it in her face. At that point, ignoring was no longer feasible and served no one.

Ignore.

Rae scoffed, her derision her only response to his question of what he was meant to do. It was so easy for him to say 'ignore her', as if, were the roles reversed, he would ignore any boy who hung around her like a bar fly, filling her with compliments then running back to him with little reports. The boy wouldn't have any teeth left. She was being gracious, and yet he persisted, as if he wanted her to actually explode.

She waved him off with one hand before returning to her diligent work.

Really?

Benji sighed, running his hand down his face while his girlfriend refused to speak to him. She did this from time to time. She'd find something to get mad at him about and resort to either screaming at him, or going silent completely. Apparently today, he'd earned her silence.

For 'indulging' Kaitlyn, apparently, when he was quite certain he'd done nothing of the sort. "So that's it then?" he asked as she continued fussing with her flower crown and pretending he didn't exist. "You're just never gonna talk to me again?" Unrealistic. His girlfriend was as stuck with him as he was with her and there was no way he was going the rest of his life with the silent treatment. He'd rather she scream at him and tell him all the ways he'd disappointed and let her down again.

But she scoffed at him. Great. This was going nowhere.

Kaitlyn had said something to her. Goaded her. Got under her skin. Again. Benji could never understand why someone like Rae let someone like Kaitlyn have so much power over her emotions. She was just...an instigator for lack of a better word, and he ignored her just fine so...

Benji stared at the girl focusing pointedly on her work. If he...stopped being so defensive for a second could he see why this bothered her? He waited, studying her quietly and then realized, he could. If the roles were reversed and some bloke that he'd be some real hot shit and boast about Benji's girlfriend to his face, it wouldn't end well.

He'd want it rectified. The first time.

He sighed, audibly, running his hand over his face. "Fine." He reached down and took his girlfriend by the wrist, ignoring the way she tried to pull away. "Let's go. We'll put her in her place now. Come on. Up."

He tugged again, a bit more insistent this time. If he were going to cuss out Kaitlyn Dwyer, then Rae was going to be witness to his efforts.

Was he still standing there?

A glance from the corner of her eye revealed that he was. Rae couldn't imagine why. She had nothing to say to him. In the past, she'd screamed, she'd raged, she'd called him and Kaitlyn every nasty name in the book. She'd tried explaining that she didn't like it, had given Kaitlyn many warnings and had let Benji know how much it got under her skin. If none of that made a difference, the Slytherin couldn't imagine that wasting her breath another time would. She'd run out of things to say, and any fire to blaze hot. Rae didn't want to erupt in fury that would be laughed at. She wanted to finish her flower crown and then take a short walk along the lake with Echo before heading back inside the castle.

It was true; she was stuck with Benji, for better or worse. It didn't mean she had to talk to him. It didn't mean she had to hang around while he lazily draped an arm over her shoulder with statements as asinine as 'don't be mad, pretty' and 'you know you're the only girl I want'.

It didn't fucking matter, and he didn't seem to understand that. Benji refused to accept that the part he played helped Kaitlyn to feel embolden and made him look less serious about her. The lesson was above his level of cognition, so she would leave him to it.

"Fine."

Fine what? She didn't ask. Instead, she turned her attention to the half-kneazle who'd crawled into her lap for affection. She scratched her behind the ear, distracting herself with the softness of her fur.

Suddenly, there was a hand at her wrist. Echo jumped, startled by the unexpected contact so close to her. Rae pulled against him. "Let go."

He wasn't listening. "Let's go. We'll put her in her place now. Come on. Up."

"Get off me!" she insisted, even as the boy effortlessly managed to yank her to her feet. She smacked against his strong grip, but the hand at her wrist only seemed to tighten. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Do whatever the fuck you want. Like I care."

She did care, but not enough to be involved. She'd already sent along the only message she needed Benji to hear, and he could do with it what he wanted.

"Dammit, Benji, I'm serious! Go find your new girlfriend and leave me alone!"

Well, here they went, apparently.

Benji knew it was coming. It was a game they had played too many times before to not predict how it would go. She'd ignore, he'd insist, she'd ignore, he'd get physical, she'd scream. It was likely a pattern they'd follow well into their elderly years, even when his bones were frail and he couldn't tug on her wrist without bruising her.

For now though, he was seventeen and he could do what he wanted. What he wanted was to set everything straight so he could go back to snogging his girlfriend in peace.

Because he sure wasn't gonna snog Kaitlyn.

"Get off me!"

He wouldn't. She smacked his arm, but he held fast, pulling her with him as he began his leisurely walk across the grounds. Kaitlyn was at the boathouse, last he'd heard. Using the acoustics or some shit to practice her singing. He only knew because she'd caught him on his way down to meet up with Rae, saying she'd be waiting for him there.

Well, she definitely had more than she'd bargained for coming her way.

"I'm not going anywhere with you. Do whatever the fuck you want. Like I care."

She did care. If she didn't care, she wouldn't be acting the way she was and giving him the silent treatment.

"Dammit, Benji, I'm serious! Go find your new girlfriend and leave me alone!"

"Shut up. I don't have a new girlfriend." Was it...helpful to tell her to shut up? Probably not. Kneeling down for only a half-second, Benji scooped her up and flung Rae over his shoulder while Echo pranced alongside them. There. That made things easier. Aside from the incessant screaming, cussing and hits that landed everywhere she could reach, this was must easier. "Let it all out." He grinned to himself, tightening his arm around her as he continued his march towards the boathouse.

It was quite the scene he imagined. A tall, handsome, athletic boy, with a tiny, feral, curly-haired gremlin over his shoulder, screaming and flailing while her cat accompanied them on their evening walk. If he were the sentimental type, Benji might have pictured this as his future, seven little ones with olive skin and curly hair skipping along behind them while he handled their mother.

Dreams really did come true.

As they came upon the boathouse, Benji grimaced at the sound of Kaitlyn's singing, not because it was bad, persay - Cass could have probably used her in one of his plays - but because he knew if Rae lunged, there'd be little he could to keep her from causing Kaitlyn great bodily harm. Rae could swim now and the odds of her attempting to drown the Ravenclaw...didn't seem far-fetched.

"Kaitlyn!" He shouted, setting Rae down on the stone entrance as he glared into the boathouse. The girl turned and looked at him, then at Rae, a satisfied smile growing across her lips. "Get over here. We need to talk."

This had to be her least favourite part of the song and dance that the pair had fallen into over the years. For all the insistence that she was crazy and psychotic, Benji never liked to let her escape. He liked to paint it as such a problem, to define her as the one who needed to calm down, but whenever she calmly tried to make him fuck off, suddenly it was unacceptable. Suddenly, he was the only one allowed to walk away while he manhandled her into whatever he thought needed to get done.

There were times she liked it – welcomed it even – but those were times when she was in on the chaos. This wasn't one of those times. The girl wasn't secretly waiting in the wings for Benji to come sweep her off her feet like a hurricane. This wasn't summer in the garden at Arundel where she'd provoked him into action because he'd refused to use words. This was her line in the sand. What he failed to see was that it was a symptom of a larger problem, one she wasn't interested in being a part of. Today, it was Kaitlyn. While they went to separate universities, it would be some other classmate. When they got married, it would be women who attended events with suggestive smiles and hidden propositions that were only 'being friendly'.

It would never end. There would always be someone making a space for themselves in their relationship because Benji would always let them.

The few choices she had in the matter, she would take, and he could truly go find the girl on his own.

Except...he wasn't putting her down. No matter how she flailed, kicked and screamed, Benji thought he was the only one who had a say in how the afternoon played out. By the time he set her down at the entrance to the boathouse, she was red in the face and huffing. While he called for Kaitlyn, she shoved him as hard as she could. "Keep your hands off me; I'm not a ragdoll!"

There were exceptions to the statement. This wasn't an exception. Benji was great at throwing her around, but it was the farthest thing from her mind.

Kaitlyn smiled at the sight of her former boyfriend, and it made her blood boil.

But she didn't care. As she'd told him, he could do whatever he wanted. She would be taking her feline and leaving.

"You've clearly got nothing better to do, and you've mistaken me for the same." How many times had he already 'spoken to Kaitlyn'? How many times had he already sworn that he'd set her straight? A day, a week – she would be back to her old tricks, and he would be back to making excuses. It was as if both thought that enough time passing would make her forget that there had ever been an issue. Then the Ravenclaw would waltz back in to remind her that there was.

She scooped Echo up, not wanting her to run off before she could leave.

"I don't have time for this. Find someone else to play witness. This is fucking stupid. As if anything will change." Kaitlyn didn't even take him seriously.

Benji grabbed her by the hand as she turned to leave, forcing blazing mahogany eyes back to him. Her teeth grounded painfully. "Let. Go."

Blah, blah, blah.

Ruth Elliot was a walking contradiction, and always had been. She didn't like his more aggressive side, until it was wielded the way she wanted. She didn't like his softer side unless it was to her benefit. She only ever wanted Benji in the image she held of him, and any change to that threw the girl into a tantrum. She didn't like him being aggressive when it suited his agenda and not hers. She didn't like when his softness presented as nonchalance. She wanted cuddles and affection and a boyfriend who kicked everyone's ass as she deemed necessary.

But the things that made her uncomfortable? She lashed out and screamed and shoved and hit, not wanting to engage for any given reason.

She was fed up with this whole Kaitlyn situation, and Benji understood enough. He didn't see the problem in the same way she did, but that wasn't the point. If it had really evolved to now she was trying to tell people to tell him they were no longer together, then it had reached a breaking point.

Because Benji wasn't getting dumped. If anyone was getting dumped, it was Rae, and he didn't feel like going through a break up today.

"Keep your hands off me; I'm not a ragdoll!"

"Shut up," he said again, as she shoved him, but it didn't dissuade the boy. His expression turned exasperated as Kaitlyn wandered over, that smug little smile on her face already doing numbers on his patience. This was her fault. If she'd just knock off her shit and leave his girlfriend alone, none of this would be happening, and maybe at some point he and the girl could actually be friends.

Benji didn't have the wherewithal at the moment to process how he was equally a problem here.

"I don't have time for this. Find someone else to play witness. This is fucking stupid. As if anything will change."

His girlfriend turned to leave, but he caught her hand, his hazel eyes moving to bore into her angry brown.

"Let. Go."

He wouldn't. Keeping a tight grip on his girlfriend's hand, he pulled her back towards him, setting his gaze on the Ravenclaw again. "I need you to understand something, Kaitlyn."

"And what's that, Benji?"

“Whatever you think is going on or will go on between the two of us is never going to fucking happen.”

Kaitlyn's smile widened as she tilted her head, crossing her arms in front of her as though she knew better and Benji was just making a show.

“I don’t want you. I’ve never wanted you. You’re just always fucking there.” Benji pulled Rae closer by their joined hands, planting her firmly beside him despite the resistance he could feel in every inch of her. “She could dump me for real tomorrow and I still wouldn’t want you. I’d be too busy getting her back.” Kaitlyn's smile faltered minutely, her eyes shifting to Rae for only a moment, before back to Benji.

Maybe it wasn't gentle, or kind, but Benji didn't give a shit. If hurting Kaitlyn's feelings for real was what needed to happen to get her to leave his girlfriend alone and prove to Rae, that he wasn't entertaining anyone but her, then it was what he would do. He wasn't bluffing when he'd said he'd be busy getting Rae back if she ever really dumped him. Which she hadn't. That boy would claw his relationship with her out of whatever grave she'd dug. He'd be a menace, never giving the girl an inch of peace until she agreed they weren't broken up anymore.

Was he ridiculous? Probably. But so was Rae.

This whole thing was ridiculous.

“So stop following me around. Stop whispering shit to her. Stop looking at her like you’re waiting for your turn.” His lip curled. “You don’t get one.” He turned to Rae, "And you." She pulled against him again, but he held fast. "If you're dumping me, you look me in the eye and fucking do it yourself. You don't send her or anyone else."

And when she did, he'd laugh and tell her she wasn't dumping him. She was stuck with him for the rest of her life, even if that was only until they'd turned twenty-four.

His attention snapped back to Kaitlyn who was only growing redder in the face. "Now fuck off. We're fighting."

"Shut up."

It was a wonder she'd turned into neither a tomato nor a beetroot with how much colour flooded her face. Benji...had the nerve...as if this weren't half his fault. As if he hadn't spent half their Hogwarts life – at least – encouraging the girl with his smiles and compliance. As if she hadn't tried to correct the girl and been told that she was the one overreacting. As if she wasn't the one being asked to accept what Benji would've shut down with fists ages ago. It was only wrong when she did it, and attention was only unacceptable when she was the one receiving it.

He could miss her with all that nonsense. She and Echo had heard this story before. They'd seen the screenplay and weren't very fond of the extended ending that came after the curtain call of showmanship.

"You don't get to tell me to shut up when this is YOUR fault." As he was so apt to forget. Had he properly checked Kaitlyn the first time, they wouldn't be here. Had he stopped having her buzzing around him. He could be so full of shit. Rae knew her not-boyfriend and knew he liked his ego stroked. He wasn't fooling her with his 'she's just being nice' shit.

But he wasn't letting her go. She was stuck watching the performance for the millionth time. Rae could already hear it. "She's my girlfriend, not you", "she doesn't like when you talk to me", "just ease up, Kaitlyn".

Pansy-ass weak rebukes she smiled through and claimed to 'understand'.

“I don’t want you. I’ve never wanted you. You’re just always fucking there.”

Well, that was better.

He tugged. She pulled on reflex, but he never let go.

“She could dump me for real tomorrow and I still wouldn’t want you. I’d be too busy getting her back.”

Rae turned to look at him. What did he mean by 'for real'? She had broken up with him for real. This wasn't a joke. Her frustration wasn't manufactured for the afternoon. She had genuinely reached the end of her rope with Benji's subtle flirtation and the insult of him thinking that saying he didn't want it was enough to convince her he wasn't condoning it. Were the rolls reversed, he would be seeing red and she would never have peace. Perhaps that was the issue. Perhaps she'd given him too much peace.

Kaitlyn looked at her. Rae pulled down her lower eyelid and stuck her tongue out for good measure. It was the more civilised of the two gestures she'd considered, albeit more provocative. It didn't matter; it was cut short as Benji whirled around to face her.

"If you're dumping me, you look me in the eye and fucking do it yourself. You don't send her or anyone else."

"Oh, fuck off," she replied. "She likes playing 'owl' so much, and you like getting little whispers from her. Why not save myself some time?"

"Now fuck off. We're fighting."

Apparently, they were.

She didn't hear anything Kaitlyn might have said after, unconcerned by the red-faced Ravenclaw who hadn't been deterred by broken bones in the past. Would she listen this time? Humiliated as she was? It was hard to say, but time would tell. For now, she called him every name in the book – even threw in that he was what a coward he was for changing his tune because she was standing there. Good. Let him change his tune. The boy had enough self-preservation in him to understand what was good for them both, even if she didn't.

As Kaitlyn stalked away, Rae turned her attention back to Benji. She raised a brow.

"You'd think you'd just ended a 10-year relationship. Just what the fuck did you have her think was going on?"

"Oh, fuck off. She likes playing 'owl' so much, and you like getting little whispers from her. Why not save myself some time?"

Kaitlyn was barking, screaming profanities and whatever else she managed to strum up within her chest as she stalked away. Benji's eyes narrowed into Rae's, ignoring the Ravenclaw as she went about her tantrum, stalking off up the stairs back to the castle. Probably to sing in the tower about what a shit he was, but it was better than her trying to break him up with his girlfriend.

"You just have to keep going, don't you? You realize you've won, right? She's gone. Would you rather have me pushed her off the Divination tower?" It was better he hadn't asked that. He already knew the answer. His girlfriend was unhinged and definitely would have preferred he murder Kaitlyn if it meant she never had to see the girl's face again.

"You'd think you'd just ended a 10-year relationship. Just what the fuck did you have her think was going on?"

"Noootthiiiing," the boy groaned, running his hand over his face. Merlin. His girlfriend was incorrigible on her best days, but one her worst? She was a dog with a bone and there was no taking it from her. He didn't love Kaitlyn. He didn't even like Kaitlyn. She'd been a great snog at one point, but all the crazy ones were. He'd never had anything special with her, or even something casual, really. They never talked when they were fooling around. Benji never asked about Kaitlyn's day or about her family or really anything beyond, "Is this closet good?"

Sure, she'd complimented him on his physique now and then, but lots of girls did. He said 'thank you', as he did to all the others. The difference was, the others didn't stalk him through the corridors of Hogwarts or tease his girlfriend about it.

"Genuinely nothing, okay? She's just...weird, Rae. She's always been weird." A good weird, at one point, but that was long over. His shoulders slumped as his arms fell to his side and he looked at her, his eyes tired and over all of it. He managed a small grin, as he reached out to nudge her shoulder. "Come on, pretty." He took her by the hand, pulling her closer to him again.

"You know you're the only girl for me." His eyes softened a bit, and his eyebrows crinkled, "Right? You do know that?"

What...an insufferable girl.

Rae may not have been able to focus enough to understand her words, but it didn't make her deaf to the sheer volume of her existence. It took some time and a bunch of steps for the girl to finally fall out of earshot, but she imagined that, even then, the Ravenclaw was still spitting fire as she went. Good for her. If she had to have her afternoon ruined, it was only fair that Kaitlyn got the same.

If Ruth Anaya couldn't be happy, no one could be happy. The point had been well proven, and she was content to take her half-kneazle and enjoy the rest of it before dinner. Of course, there was still the matter of her annoyed ex-boyfriend who was apparently no longer her ex. Funny how quickly those things could change. One minute, Benji was pissing her off so thoroughly and hurting her feelings enough for her chest to constrict with a mixture of anger and something else and the next, he was telling other girls to fuck off.

What a guy.

"You just have to keep going, don't you? You realize you've won, right?"

"I always win until she comes bac—"

"She's gone. Would you rather have me pushed her off the Divination tower?"

"Yes. Circe, Benji, was that not obvious the first time I pushed her down the stairs??" Had she told him about the second? She didn't think she had, but surely Kaitlyn – incorrigible girl that she was – must have let it slip at some point. It wasn't an accident. It hadn't been an accident the first time, nor had it been the second. Should Kailtlyn have abandoned all sense of self-preservation again, as she'd bordered on doing today, Rae may well have found a third set of staircases to send her flying down. Why was Benji acting new?

"One shove and she'd leave you alone. One push, one flight, one tower. You wouldn't even need to be as consistent. It'd be a one-and-done, and the school would consider it public service."

Had she ever stuttered when suggesting some of this?

"Genuinely nothing, okay? She's just...weird, Rae. She's always been weird."

Rae gave him a long, silent side eye. She looked him up and down, noting the fatigue that caused his body to cave in on itself a little. He was tired. Well, so was she. If the boy thought he'd mope and earn himself her sympathy, then he'd been barking up the wrong tree. This was his fault. He'd brought this suffering onto himself with his cheeky grins and insistences that he'd only been trying to be 'friendly'. The Hufflepuff wasn't dumb, despite what many in the castle used to think. He wasn't some oblivious boy who just thought a girl he used to snog was simply trying to be friends, and it still insulted her every time he tried to frame it that way.

Kaitlyn was weird, but Benji was INDULGENT.

"Come on, pretty."

That line, she'd definitely heard before. It was always present after they argued about Kaitlyn or when he tried to coax her out of her very-absolutely-justified anger.

"You know you're the only girl for me. Right? You do know that?"

Rae sighed. Sinking to the floor, she patted the spot next to her.

"I'm only gonna explain this one more time, then I really will divorce you someday." She looked out at the lake, the waves lapping gently against the structure of the boathouse. She'd told him it all before, even when he'd 'harmlessly' kissed Matilda on the cheek. "Knowing I'm 'the only girl for you' doesn't make these things hurt less; it makes them hurt more. It doesn't matter if you actually want them or not. It's what gets projected – what gets seen and the messages it sends to the rest of them. They start thinking it must not be so serious and that you don't take me so seriously if they keep getting away with shit. If I did, you wouldn't have waited so long to properly check Kaitlyn. If she still felt comfortable, it's because you made her comfortable, and it made her bold enough to throw it in my face – and I don't wanna hear that 'ignore' her bullshit. I shouldn't have to and you never would. Your boundaries make things spill onto me and I just worry that I'll be stuck dealing with girls you won't stop smiling at and entertaining for the rest of my life. I can't be a murderer, Benji. Do you know what they do to tiny girls in Azkaban?"

Likely the same thing they did to average-sized girls, but that was hardly the point.

"I'm just asking that you stop doing shit you'd break a guy's jaw for me doing. When in doubt, ask yourself: would Rae or I throw away our entire futures if we saw each other doing this? If you think the answer is...remotely a yes, then you've got your answer."