home where my music's playing (rose)

[Seth Wishart]

It was Saturday, and Seth had the day off. They were between runs at the theatre, there was nothing he was particularly needed for today, and he did not have any gigs this weekend (which was a shame, but also quite a welcome little break). The trouble with his hours at the theatre, and playing music gigs, was that they were so anti-social. Other people had ordinary weekday jobs, which was when Seth tended to have his time off. During the evenings, when people were out doing things, he was usually working. Not that he'd switch his job for some boring office routine, but it did mean that he saw less of his friends, and especially of Rose. At least if he was playing a gig, he could invite people along, but he still didn't get to talk to them much. Now Rose was out of school, he ought to have been able to see her much more, but it hadn't worked out like that as he'd been particularly busy since the end of her term.

However, today he was off, and the flat was also empty, both James and Fred off doing other things (they'd both been gone by the time he woke up, as he'd had a late night at the theatre the night before). He had flooed Rose and asked if she wanted to come round later, telling her that he'd been a shit boyfriend recently and wanted to make it up to her. She had agreed, and Seth had fully intended to clean the flat (it wasn't too horrendous, but it could have been better), start preparing something for dinner later, and maybe even do something nice and romantic (which he didn't do very often, since neither he nor Rose was the type for big romantic gestures, but he figured the odd one might not go completely amiss). Nothing over the top, of course, since Fred or James could potentially walk into the flat at any moment, but something small. 

He hadn't quite got as far as deciding what when a sudden idea for a tune came into his head and demanded to be written down. Two hours later, he was sitting on the floor of the living room with his guitar, a piece of paper on the floor in front of him, and a pencil in his head, alternately scribbling and playing. He had entirely lost track of time and barely noticed as his fireplace glowed green.

[Rose Weasley]

Rose poked her head out of the fire first, and seeing her boyfriend engrossed in his guitar, stepped out without waiting for him to notice her. She'd been feeling as if she'd been being a terrible girlfriend, so it was with a modicum of relief that she'd heard Seth inform her that he'd been feeling equally bad. Rose loved her job - she really, truly did - and it completely fascinated her, but it also left her exhausted at the end of a long day, and by the time she was home and sorted, Seth was generally on his way out to work.

She'd been twittering round in a particularly happy mood as a result of their plans all morning, to the point where she'd figured she was probably annoying poor, lovely Albus; and had thus taken herself down to the shops largely for something to do. Having purchased a bottle of relatively nice wine - she thought it was one Seth liked, or hoped so at least - she'd headed back home, put on a clean top, brushed her hair and proceeded to Floo her way over.

Now, she looked at Seth fondly as he scribbled away on the middle of the floor, all notion of anything else evidently forgotten, and reached out a hand out to tap him lightly on his head to alert him of her presence. "Hey, you," she smiled, eyes twinkling, "Hard at work, or open to company?" Depositing the bottle of wine on a small table, she sat next to him and leant back on her hands, happy to wait a little while until he'd finished whatever train of unfathomable musical thought he was currently following.

[Seth Wishart]

Seth started at the tap on his head and looked round to find his girlfriend sitting herself down beside him. The present - and his plans - came rushing back to him, and he realised that he must have been playing for far longer than he had intended or realised.

"Rose..." He looked at her with a mixture of apology and dismay on his face. "Shit, sorry, I meant to be all ready for you coming over and I completely lost track..." He shook his head, shaking himself out of his music mode. "No, no. I'm not working today, even at this. Today is remind-my-girlfriend-she-has-a-boyfriend day." He pushed the guitar off his lap and tossed the pencil onto the coffee table, then glanced around the room. He had done nothing to tidy it after all, but it couldn't be helped now. He knew she wouldn't really mind, but he genuinely had meant to make a bit of an effort at least, seeing as they hadn't spent much in the way of quality time together recently.

He turned to her with a slightly rueful grin, now unencumbered by musical instruments. "Okay, start again. Hey, it's great to see you, and obviously I was fully expecting you and waiting for your arrival at any moment." He leaned over to kiss her briefly in greeting. "Sorry," he said again, as he pulled away.

[Rose Weasley]

Seth's smile reminded Rose (oh, who was she kidding? As if she could forget) how gosh-darn handsome her boyfriend was, and she beamed back at him, tucking some of her hair behind one of her ears as she did so.

"You're a terrible human being," Rose informed him cheerfully, not meaning it a single iota, tapping him on the nose as he moved backwards from their kiss. "However will you make it up to me? I might just run away to see with a sailor. Or emigrate to Australia with a flamenco dancer. Or-" Her imagination gave out temporarily, and she paused momentarily, "-or just sulk, or something."

She glanced down at the piece of paper still laying on the floor in front of them, habitually reaching out to straighten it, "So. What were you fiddling away at? If it was a serenade for Fred, then I hate to tell you that I think his heart may lay elsewhere."



 ------
_{[sorry it's so dreadful, chicken!]}

[Seth Wishart]

"I know I am," Seth's face took on a look of mock tragedy. "It's a curse I have to bear. Do you know any sailors or flamenco dancers?" he added. "I mean, should I be worried?" He gave up on pretending to be serious and grinned at her, very grateful that he had a girlfriend who didn't get overly bothered by things like him forgetting she was coming over hours after he'd invited her.

"Hmm, I don't know, I'd better get thinking on the whole making up thing. Any ideas?" he asked her, raising his eyebrows with the faintest hint of suggestion.

He glanced down at the piece of paper and grinned. "Oh, nothing special. It just came into my head. And no, I think Fred only cares about older Quidditch players, so I'll just have to save it for James." He propped his guitar up against the sofa, and glanced around. "Hey, we could even move to chairs, if you wanted. And you could have a drink or something," he suggested vaguely. His eyes lit on the bottle of wine on the table. "Did you bring that, or did it just materialise out of thin air? Or was it there all the time and I just never noticed?"

((OOC - Don't be silly, it's perfect!))

[Rose Weasley]

"I know several flamenco-dancing sailors, actually," Rose informed Seth glibly, "So I'd be absolutely, five hundred percent terrified if I were you."

She narrowed her eyes at the suggestion in his eyes, but try as she might could not suppress a frankly mischievous smile. "No ideas at all," she said innocently, scrambling up on to the sofa behind her, before adding, considerably less angelically, "At least none that could occur if there's a chance either of my cousins might reappear without notice."

"James only cares about plants," she pointed out slowly, as if talking to a particularly unintelligent child. "Yes, I brought the wine: you are the absolute worst!" She extended a hand to pull him up on to the sofa beside her, "That's something else you'll have to make up to me now, you know..."

Reaching into her bag, she withdrew her wand and conjured a couple of glasses up before opening the bottle to pour them both a drink.

[Seth Wishart]

"Really?" Seth raised his eyebrows with a mock-earnest expression. "Wow, they sound like colourful characters, you should introduce me to them some time. As opposed to running away with them."

"That," he went on regretfully, "is sadly a very good point. I mean, I'm not really expecting them back immediately, but it's always a risk. I guess it's PG rated activities only in here. Though I do have a bedroom, with a door that closes, just a random point I thought I'd mention."

"I can write a song about plants!" He nodded cheerfully at her. "I'm sure I could even pretend to be a plant while singing it. Good plan. Plant song for Jamie's birthday present. An ode to the beauty of the bubotuber. I got this." He easily allowed her to pull him up beside him and watched as she poured the wine.

"Well, thank you for bringing it, since I'm clearly completely hopeless," he said. "But I think I quite like making things up to you, so we should be okay." He took a glass from her hand, but didn't drink from it immediately, instead slipping his other arm round her waist and gently pulling her close to him. "I'm making the most of the fact that James and Fred aren't here right at this very moment though," he murmured, before kissing her again, slightly more lingeringly than the last time.

[Rose Weasley]

"They are, they're great. But no, running off into the sunset with them is definitely my Plan A.," Rose maintained, complying with Seth's efforts to manoeuvre them closer together. "A bedroom with a door that closes, hmm? What are you trying to insinuate, Mr Wishart?"

"I'm going to hold you to that. It'll vastly improve Jamie's life," she grinned back at him, knowing full well that poor James would possibly want to run and hide should anyone attempt to serenade him, even if they were dressed as a plant at the time.

"Tragically hopeless," Rose agreed, putting her own glass back down on the table in order to both avoid spilling it on the sofa but also to pull Seth even closer to kiss him properly. "I quite like you making things up to me, I think, so we might be good for a while yet."

[Seth Wishart]

"Oh really? And what's Plan B, if that doesn't work out for you?" he asked jokingly, before widening his eyes innocently. "Insinuate? I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just stating facts. I have a bedroom, it has a door, that door opens and closes. Like most doors," he added as an afterthought. "It's a pretty standard door actually. Though James and Fred seem to have a bit of an issue with opening it - in that they won't do it, if it's closed and I'm inside. It's almost as if they're worried I might have someone in there with me."

"I know it would," Seth agreed. "It's obviously the main thing he's lacking in his life at the moment. When is his birthday, again?" He was sure he had the date written down somewhere. Probably. He might even have known it at one point, but dates were not Seth's strong point.

"Good," he replied vaguely, losing his thread in the conversation slightly as she pulled them closer together. He hurriedly slid his own glass onto the floor by the sofa, pushing it a little distance from their feet (wine was good, but it could wait a few minutes) before returning his full attention to her, twisting his body to face hers. He slid both arms round her waist and pressed his lips to hers, revelling in the fact that, for now, they had the flat to themselves.

((OOC - The evil part of me wants to let them get a bit more into it and then have Fred walk in... ))

[Rose Weasley]

"Well," Rose looked up at him reproachfully, "I was going to say that it'd possibly involve your bedroom and its standard door that opens and closes; but it you're merely 'stating facts', I'm not convinced you'd be that interested..." She shot a quirk of a grin in his direction, and then widened her eyes to match his. "Why on earth would they be worried if you'd have a hypothetical someone in there with you? Everyone knows all you like doing is embroidery, a perfectly respectable activity." Pausing thoughtfully, Rose mused for a moment or two, "Just be grateful that it's not Louis. I don't think that particular cousin of mine would have any compunctions over opening the door at ah- inopportune moments."

She thought for a moment, somewhat distracted by Seth's hands on her waist. "Ninth of June," she eventually murmured against Seth's lips, not wanting to pull away unless she absolutely had to.

-------------------
OOC- HA. YES.

[Seth Wishart]

"Oh well, you never know." Seth grinned at her. "I might be interested. Won't know until you tell me. It sounds potentially intriguing though..." He attempted to pull his face straight, though he didn't make a very good job of it. "I know, right?! I mean, that's all you and me ever do. We should reassure them some time, though they might not believe us, I don't know." He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah... on the whole, I think I'm glad Fred and James are more cautious than not. Not that I wouldn't return the favour, if either of them brought anyone home at any point." Sometimes he wondered whether Rose found it a little weird that her boyfriend lived with not one but two of her cousins. He thought that James and Fred had found it a bit strange at first, though they seemed to be generally okay with it.

Despite the conversation about inopportune moments and closed doors, it barely registered with Seth that they were currently in a communal room and that the door into the flat could potentially open at any moment. "I knew that," he replied unconvincingly (in fact, they'd celebrated James's birthday just a few weeks ago, a fact that had temporarily slipped Seth's mind), then looked down at her, enjoying just looking into her eyes for a moment. "Now I'm going to stop thinking about James's birthday," he murmured with a grin, and closed the gap between them again. One hand crept up her back as he deepened the kiss, definitely no longer thinking about any of her cousins.

[Rose Weasley]

"Potentially intriguing?" Rose repeated, mock-indignantly, "Excuse me, mister, I'm at least definitely intriguing, I'll have you know! It's a very good job I fancy you, you know." Seth's attempt at a straight face was appalling enough to make Rose dissolve into giggles, and even the frankly icky thought of James or Fred ever getting it on with anybody wasn't quite enough to sober her up. "They should definitely believe us," she asserted confidently, one of her hands creeping up to the nape of Seth's neck, "We're wonderful and very, very trustworthy."

Rose often tried her hardest not to think about any of her cousins - the fact that approximately five million of them existed at any one given time didn't help too much with this, unfortunately - but the combination of Seth's eyes, hands, lips, everything was enough to have driven them from her mind should the issue have arisen. "I don't know," she said in a low voice, the kind that would have been only audible to Seth even if others had been in the room, "I quite enjoyed James' birthday..." Needless to say, she'd ended up crashing at the boys' place after the party, and the events that followed hadn't exactly been unenjoyable.

[Seth Wishart]

"Well... I didn't want to sound too keen," he told her. "I have some sort of dignity to keep up, you know." Keeping up his dignity was so far from what Seth did the majority of the time - he wasn't sure he had any left to keep up - that this statement was ridiculous. "I agree, though. I'm not sure how you'd put up with me if you didn't fancy me. And it's a good thing, because I'm pretty into you as well."

"We are!" he agreed, though her hand on his neck, innocently placed though it was, was something of a distraction from the conversation. "I don't know why anyone wouldn't believe us." He grinned suddenly. "I mean, obviously we're doing embroidery right now, the evidence is right here..."

His eyes turned slightly hazy at her reminder, his lips finding a spot just below her ear and brushing there. "So did I. Especially the bits that didn't happen at the party." He lifted his hand and pushed her hair back so that he could carry on kissing down her neck. Part of his brain - a very small part - was aware that this was moving quite quickly given where they were currently sitting, but the greater part really didn't care. It wasn't as if they'd started taking clothes off, after all.

[Rose Weasley]

Humouring him - she did so very occasionally - Rose tried her absolute hardest to make a vague noise of agreement, but failed completely. "Pretty into me, hm?" she couldn't help but smile. It wasn't that Rose was insecure by any stretch of the imagination, but she definitely had the odd day where she just couldn't see why anyone as nice and lovely and just wonderful as Seth could possibly see anything in spiky, prissy Rose; and so the off-hand reassurance Seth was generally appreciated.

"My cross stitch is perfect," Rose started off hotly (and completely and utterly lying: her sewing was awful, but why did it need to be any good if she could just rely on spellwork?), but the effect was marred somewhat by her fading off into a kind of silence as Seth found just the right spot on her neck. Fingers curling almost involuntarily into Seth's hair, she rolled her head to the side slightly. "I think," she said reflectively after a moment or so, "That we should definitely remind ourselves of that. Later."

[Seth Wishart]

"Yeah... kind of quite a lot into you really," Seth commented, his tone casual and teasing, though his words were very genuine. "In fact..." He grinned at her. "I'm pretty sure I fancied you before you fancied me." He was indeed fairly sure that this was true, as he'd spent quite a bit of time watching Rose wistfully from afar before they'd ever actually done anything. His words were spoken jokingly though - he was very content with his current situation, and looking back too much seemed unnecessary.

"I'm sure it is. You can give me a demonstration some time. Some time that's not today..." He'd quite like to keep kissing her like this for a long time, especially as he he felt her fingers tighten in his hair. "Mm..." He smiled against her skin as he traced along her collar bone. "Me too.." He pulled away, far enough that he could look at her face, but not so far he needed to move his arms. "Not too much later. Although we did have wine to drink first..."