hell is so close, and heaven's out of reach

[Kelly Evans]

The shadows of Licentious Lane seemed deeper than normal. The early-autumn night crept by like the splotches of clouds covering the moon, and within the lane a young witch also crept, just as silently. It wasn't a place you were seen in in the daytime, let alone the middle of the night, and there was a heady sense of dark magic filling in the empty spaces between the air she was breathing that made Kelly Evans all that much more afraid. She wasn't meant to be there, she knew that. I should have left it to the Aurors.

The cloak draped about her shoulders, covering the dark wizarding robes over her slim body, the hood pulled up over her now blonde hair, covering her face, screamed that Kelly didn't belong there. It was too covert, too dark, and her affiliation with light seemed to create a pulsing neon halo over her head. Maybe she was paranoid, but maybe she was right to be cautious. There was no denying that to be here was either to get yourself killed or roped into something that made you beg for death. I should have left it to the Aurors, she thought over and over, though the screaming voice inside her head hardly made it any better.

Kelly had promised herself that she would find out what had happened to Queety, and so there she was. In truth, the witch was kidding herself; what did she know about tracking down criminals, trying to get confessions, or even defending herself against them once she found them? She was a Healer, she fixed the people after they'd come across the criminals, tried to get the confessions out of them. Or, though her sense of right and wrong was always called into question, Kelly fixed up the criminals after the Aurors, the people in charge, had finished with them. She had never had so much respect for Hermione as she did in that moment.

Maybe that was why she was so worked up about what had happened, then. Because Queety hadn't gone looking for trouble. She had simply been minding her own business one day, and had attracted the wrong attention. A noise in the shadows behind her made Kelly jump around and the hood fall off her head. Her pale hair and face now showing, the witch couldn't help but point out the irony, that while she was attempting to defend Queety against the criminals and the dark magic, she had turned into the very same person who went looking for trouble.

[Sebastién de La Pérouse]

It was hot tonight. The air seemed to claw at his neck, scratching around his robes and begging him to let his hood fall from his head. He could hardly breath. Licentious Lane always made his blood crawl beneath his skin with exhilaration, made him itch with the feeling of right and wrong all rolled into one. In Licentious Lane, Sebastién de La Pérouse always felt more alive and closer to death, more at home and more out of depth than anywhere else in the world. He liked to stalk the streets at night.

You never do know what you will find.

With a permanent smirk planted upon his shadowed face, Sebastién wandered down the dark alleys that were the trademark of this filthy, deserted underworld. Hidden in the corners, the dead ends lay hundreds of outcasts; those whose ideas were no longer allowed in normal society. Those who, unlike Sebastién, could not mask their contempt with glittering gold. Money could hide anything, but without it, there were only the shadows of Licentious Lane.

His feet echoed on the ground behind him, as he walked past shadowy figures, recoiling from his step. He was here on business – there had been another name buried deep within the records of the department of mysteries – Erikson. What happened to the family though, he didn’t know, but if they still survived, the answers would be here.

As he turned yet another corner, he looked up to see a figure before him, blonde hair flowing down her back. She did not belong here. What the hell was she doing? She could be killed. With a reluctant snarl, he felt his feet speed up, until coming up beside her, he laced his hand into her own, locking down upon it until she couldn’t escape his grasp.

His voice was a low growl in her ear: “You should not be here”.

[Kelly Evans]

A hand entwined with her own and Kelly's first, animal instinct was to scream, scream until someone, somewhere, would rush to her aid, take her away from this hot night, from the shadows that teemed with silent, invisible forces that knew, just knew she wasn't meant to be there. For perhaps the first time in her life, though, the rational side of her brain, which had laid so dormant for so many years, kicked into gear just in time, and instead of a scream, the only sound that escaped from her lips with a low, sucked in breath, the gasp, to her ears, shattering the silence of the night.

As her senses rushed back to where they were supposed to be, and her heart started beating at its normal pace again, Kelly registed the warm hand in her own and the familiar voice, and, with an upward glance of her dark eyes, her face lost whatever colour it still may have held. Not because she was afraid, not, at least, of Sebastien de La Perouse, but because she didn't want him to see her vulnerable, so out of her element. No matter what he thought her name was, she wanted to stay fixed in his mind as the gutsy witch who stepped forward even when she wanted to step back, and all Kelly wanted to do right then was to run away, as fast as she could.

Irrationally, she knew that the single moment of clarity wouldn't last very long, Kelly attempted to tug her hand out of Sebastien's hold. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the witch knew that if Sebastien oozed confidence in this place of all places that made her own blood run cold and her heart beat five million times faster than it was supposed to, then he obviously knew what he was doing. At the forefront of her mind, though, was the horrendous humiliation she had suffered when he'd realised just who she was, and definitely not the witch he'd wanted.

"Obviously you do," came her curt reply, despite all the whirrings of her mind, and Kelly stopped in her furious attempts to tug her hand out of his as it appeared there would be no lee-way given. "What the hell are you doing here, are you following me?" she said, another irrational thought. Her voice was just as low and just as husky as Sebastien's, and yet her face was flushed with anger, her hazel eyes, if anything, even darker.

[Sebastién de La Pérouse]

She was behaving better than he expected, but then again, there was something about the silence here that made people take everything in its turn. You gasped when you would normally scream, slowed your walk when you would normally want to run. Anything to blend in, to become a part of the alley, of the silence. Anything to belong, if only for the moment. Anything to stay alive.

He could feel her struggling with his grasp but he refused to let go. At this moment, his hand could be the only thing keeping her from being captured, found out. She was too much like sunshine, she even smelled of good. If you looked into her eyes, you knew she didn’t belong, and so he pulled her hood back upon her head. Everything was about cover here, about black and darkness, her blonde hair was too wild, too free. It was as though it was a symbol of goodness, like Glinda, the good witch. This wasn’t going to be easy.

As her voice penetrated the silence, he couldn’t help the gruff response her emitted. This place made him more primal, more animal, less polished and human. “I was born in this world. I am welcomed here”. He didn’t explain; these were not the streets for conversation. Nowhere was safe. She wasn’t really safe, not even with him, and he definitely was not safe with her now. He had to be carful, he was treading a dangerous line. Why the hell did she have to be here tonight? Why at all?

Better when he could save her he supposed, although why he cared, he’ll never know.

As her questions rolled off her lips, Sebastién growled in frustration. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?” His voice was biting, unlike anything he had presented to her before. “There are worse things than me here, you would do well to remember that. Why I am here is not your concern. Just be thankful that I am.” Breathing out the frustration that was rising up inside of him, making the heat unbearable, Sebastién pulled them down around another corner.

“You’re a damn fool Samu… Evans. Whoever you are, but I wont have your death on my conscience.”

[Kelly Evans]

Fighting back the urge to scoff, Kelly rolled her eyes, though that was almost impossible to see given the light, and she smirked. "It figures, I should have pegged you to be one of them," she said angrily, though she made sure to keep her voice down. Kelly might have been angry, and hurt, and lost, but she wasn't suicidal. She'd known ever since she'd left the house that where she intended to go and what she intended to do may well have ended very unhappily for her, and thus she had no desire to draw unwanted attention to herself.

Sebastien's hands on her hair as he righted her hood made her shiver, though not unpleasantly, and she wasn't sure which she hated more at that moment: Sebastien, for apparently caring just enough about her to help her get out of there alive, or herself, for letting him care. Kelly let the man lead her away from where she had stopped, and though she winced as his fingers dug into the skin of her upper arms, she didn't complain.

All too suddenly for her liking, the anger and the indignation seemed to seep out of her very pores, and all she felt was humiliated. She felt like a small child who had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, and all she wanted was to go home. And she was thankful, as his words reached her ears. She was glad to have stumbled upon a familiar face, no matter how unwelcome that face may have once appeared, and Kelly found it quite distasteful that she couldn't admit that.

"I am thankful," she said eventually, her eyes on the uneven paths of the strange labrinythine twists and turns before her. I'm sorry." It was then that Kelly realised that she didn't hate him, not at all. If anything, it was the latter; Kelly hated herself, for what his presence turned her into, what it made her do and say. Too tired and too small to match his pace, Kelly was soon slightly breathless, and she tugged at Sebastien's hand, needing to pause for only a moment. She said so, and, coming to a halt, leaned on the cool stones of an eerie looking building.

"My name is Kelly," she said, her voice lower than a whisper, and yet she knew that Sebastien could hear her. She only hoped that anybody else around couldn't. "And while I don't know what it is about you that makes my blood boil and my heart race, I am sorry about putting you in this position." Kelly wanted to bite the words back as soon as they were uttered, and she shook her head, too hot under the stifling black cloak and under his dark gaze. "You don't owe me anything, and I know that. But I have to know: how much of what you said to me was because of the woman you saw in front of you, and how much was because you thought I was Kat Samuels?"

[Sebastién de La Pérouse]

The anger in her voice amused him. Of course, just because he was here, he had to be one of them. He wasn’t, not really. He didn’t want to kill people, he didn’t enjoy torturing them. What was that muggle line? He’d heard it quoted at her party once or twice, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. He wasn’t evil, he just recognised his power and knew it was foolish not to use it. He wouldn’t correct her though, she would think what she would think, it was too late to change that now, it was too late the moment he took her hand in his own.

As her voice softened, Sebastién felt his annoyance slip away. She always had this front with him, she had to match him in his arrogance, his carelessness. Sometimes he wondered if he could stop himself, maybe life would be easier for her, but he was selfish really. Life for him was a game, people were a game, she was a game. At least, that’s what he tried to believe. He was no monster though, he was just as human as she was. Perhaps that was why he played so hard, to show himself, his real self would be to admit defeat, weakness, but to treat her as nothing would destroy the very foundation of himself.

As she apologised, Sebastién watched her out of the corner of his dark eyes. He didn’t say a word, his silence was enough as he felt himself being tugged backwards. A scowl flittered quickly across his face before disappearing as he watched her lean against the wall. It was not safe here, but he could hear her breathing, heavy against the silence of the alley. There were footsteps in the distance, they couldn’t stop long, but he gave her the moment she needed.

He moved closer towards her, listening in to her all but silent whisper, returning it with a blankness of his own. He was not cold though, his eyes glowed with understanding, although he would not voice it in words. Her name was Kelly, he knew that now, and it suited her, although she would never hear him say it. He had made the mistake of being fooled by her once before, and while he didn’t take kindly to that, it could be forgiven, with time. He was not cold. He didn’t even smirk when she confessed his effect upon her.

At her last words however, there was a sort of softness in his eyes, a calm that few had ever seen before. At the sound of footsteps fast approaching however, the moment was shaken from him, as he leant forward, covering her face from view. Standing there, his hood covering her from site, his lips barely inches from her own, he smiled a genuine smile, his voice coming in barely a whisper. “I am here, I care, because you are who you are, you are more than just a name”.

And in that moment he did possibly the most idiotic, but also the most necessary thing of his life. Sebastién de La Pérouse leant in towards her, and pressed his lips against her own, because in that moment, her pain was more important than even his own safety, even his own person.

If only for just that moment.

[Kelly Evans]

She could hear the footsteps behind them (or were they all around?) and Kelly’s reaction to scream almost kicked in again. She didn’t, though. Instead she kept her eyes on Sebastién as he watched her, walked closer to her, and she knew, despite everything she had done, that he was trying to protect her. And what had she done, really? Had she lied, or had she simply not told the truth?

For there was a difference, after all. Lies are told to get out of something, and all Kelly had wanted was to find out what this handsome stranger had wanted with her friend. He had turned up at her door and assumed that she was Kat Samuels, and all Kelly had done was omit the one tiny detail that would have changed everything. She knew, now, that she had failed anyway; she hadn’t been able to pierce his armour, hadn’t seen or learnt anything about what he wanted, and it was here, in this dark alley, that Kelly realised she should have just asked.

Kelly didn’t know whether he forgave her, or whether he was simply accepting of her duplicity, but she didn’t care. Shadows twitched in the corners of whatever path they were on, and the witch shuddered again, feeling more out of place than ever before. The footsteps that she’d heard were like a beating drum on her ribcage, her lungs, her heart, threatening her air and she fought to remain calm. She’d always been the calm one, though there had never been a situation like this.

Kelly had been the calm one when they were hiding in the Forest after curfew, listening to the sound of the approaching Professor’s footsteps ahead and the bestial noises of the creatures behind them, when they never knew which way would be the best. She felt like this now, as Sebastién moved even closer to her, his face inches from her own, and she didn’t know which party would be worse to be trapped by: the unknown force coming from behind the shadows of the night, or this enigmatic stranger in front of her, shielding her from view?

His answer to her question made Kelly want to cry, and she stifled a gasp by biting down on her bottom lip. She wasn’t about to fall apart, not again; her pride wouldn’t let her. What do you say to a man when he tells you that he cares, that you aren’t just a name, when you mistrust him so much that you can’t even act like yourself? When you forget exactly who you are?

She wanted to rail at him, to declare him a liar, because that’s what she was. She didn’t expect the softness of his eyes, the genuine smile, and maybe she didn’t want to see either. She’d been expecting bitterness, regret, even, for wasting so much of his time with someone he didn’t need to know. Bitterness and regret would have been much easier for her to handle. It would have given her solid ground, because that’s what they were when they were together: bitter and biting.

As she stood, pressed between a cold, hard wall and Sebastién’s warm body, she lifted her eyes to his face as he leant down and kissed her, and for the second time in a week Kelly had to fight against her own sensibilities. Unlike the previous one, this fight wasn’t one that she could win, and Kelly gave in to her desires, gave in to the countless nights wondering what it would be like, whether he was really as harsh and cynical that she thought he was.

She didn’t like it when she discovered that he wasn’t; that he was bittersweet, almost kind. She didn’t like it when her hands ran up his back and she didn’t like that she forgot what kind of fatal situation she was currently standing in, though whether she referred to the setting and the dark magic or the man who held her, she didn’t know.

What Kelly did know, was that she’d been wrong, before. The footsteps behind her (beside, in front of?) were clearly not as dangerous as the man, because she knew why they were wrong. Here, at that moment, Kelly didn’t know what was so wrong about Sebastién de La Perouse, and she had had such great convictions at the beginning.

Because maybe
you're going to be the one that saves me?