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Post by Keith Evans on May 27, 2011 23:55:52 GMT -5
Keith's hands slid into his pockets after he knocked on Rowan's office door. He'd accepted Rowan's wish to cancel their tutoring sessions and he hadn't forced contact, figuring that maybe the weekend had affected Rowan more than he'd thought. But after two weeks he was anxious to talk again, to maybe try and organize another night out. The last weekend had been fun, going out with Dare and Matthew to London, but it would be fun to hang out with Rowan's friends again, or go out to a club of some kind.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 0:33:28 GMT -5
Rowan was far too distracted to recognize the sound of Keith's knock, especially considering that he'd usually been the one to initiate contact between them. No, his mind was on this final month before summer that he had in which to prepare his students for O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, to go over any weak points there might be.
He gave his wand an absent-minded flick from where he sat behind his desk, and called, "Come in," without looking up from the heavy book open in front of him. His N.E.W.T. classes needed different emphasis, it seemed, and he was considering a group project for extra credit to mix both outside class time. His sturdy raven-feather quil zipped back and forth as he made a notation in the margins of his planner.
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 0:41:29 GMT -5
Keith came in and shut the door behind him, watching Rowan absently as he walked. "Long time, no see," he said. A small smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "Why am I not surprised to find you doing work?" He didn't give a thought that a light tease might not be appreciated so close to the end of the year. "How have you been?"
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 0:52:52 GMT -5
Rowan's head lifted sharply, and for a moment, his eyes fixed firmly on Keith. He hadn't expected a visit. "Busy," he answered after a moment. His gaze dropped back down to his notes. "I've been busy." And he'd had no desire to see Keith in a social setting after the last time they'd gone out. He got into far more trouble with Keith around than he had before, and didn't like it a bit. "I'm sure you've been busy too, with summer so close." They were far better as colleagues.
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 0:59:33 GMT -5
Keith shrugged and took a seat. "Yeah, I'm trying not to let myself get too stressed out about it, though." If he was stressed then the students were worse than they needed to be and then it just wasn't fun for anyone involved. "I've been meeting up with Dare a little." He ignored any tension coming from Rowan, writing it off as just typical end of the year stress.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 1:05:24 GMT -5
"That's good," Rowan said, continuing his work, though his attention was now, unfortunately, split. "I thought you two might get along." Dare and Michael had a bit of a reputation for partying, and maybe they were more Keith's speed. He, personally, would rather go back to his solitary group outings, his friends' questions be damned.
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 1:16:40 GMT -5
"Yeah, he's pretty cool," Keith said. He was silent, unsure where to go after that. It probably wasn't right to tell Rowan about Dare and Michael, about what exactly he and Dare had been talking about. It was a few long silent moments before he spoke again. "So are you okay? I mean, after what happened?" Or had nearly happened, anyway.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 1:33:03 GMT -5
Rowan's quill stopped, and for a moment he sat motionless, staring down at his paper. He'd hoped that Keith would simply lose interest, but it looked like he would need his carefully planned speech, after all. He pulled a breath, then straightened and looked up.
"I've been thinking," he said, "and I realize that we've had a negative impact on each other. I enjoy talking with you, but I have too many regrets recently and can only imagine it's my own inability to mix business with pleasure. I am not proud of how I've acted, and I would rather we keep our relationship at a professional level in the future, while I work out my own personal issues." There, he'd said it, and it sounded just as professional, and just as respectful and non-offensive as it had looked on paper.
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 1:41:14 GMT -5
Keith went cold, as professional as the little speech had been, or maybe because of how professional it had been. "What?" he asked, confused. Rowan hadn't done anything, had he? "Is this about the kiss? I thought we'd moved on." They'd talked about it and everything had been fine, right? That was the only thing Keith could think of that Rowan might regret.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 1:49:53 GMT -5
Rowan blinked, and for a moment he started back, almost as if he'd been slapped. "No, this isn't about that," he said definitively, then, "Well, maybe, in part, but no, that isn't what this is about." He tried to gather himself, flustered, and thrown off a bit by the unexpected response. He'd done so well at forgetting about that!
He took a breath. "It's about everything. The drinking, the accidents we've had, or almost had, the distraction! This job is everything to me, and I can't be at my best when the weekends are carrying over." Keith had to understand, he'd done so well so far!
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 1:56:50 GMT -5
"I thought we were friends," Keith said. "Not distractions. You are amazing at your job, I mean, even the students talk about you." He thought Rowan needed to loosen up, if anything, and more often than just the weekends with his friends. "I'm sorry if...I pushed or...or crossed any boundaries." Sometimes it felt like he was walking a thin line talking to Rowan, but overall he enjoyed hanging out with him.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 2:10:08 GMT -5
"No, it's nothing you've done," Rowan promised. "It's just... somehow we end up drinking too much, and things happen that I didn't plan for. That is the distraction. I'm wasting too much time thinking about things when I should be improving my lesson plans, and I don't want to become dependent on any of that." Friendship, at least, as Keith seemed to want it, was too... consuming.
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 11:19:04 GMT -5
"You can't plan everything out," Keith said. "That gets things...boring. But if drinking is the problem, then we stop drinking, we don't stop being friends all together." Hell, if that was how everyone dealt with their problems no one would be friends with anyone and everyone would be alone. He didn't know if drinking was actually the problem, or if it was Rowan's issues with loosening up that he'd seen pop up a couple of times now, but he knew he didn't want to give up on the friendship just yet.
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Post by Rowan Trace on May 28, 2011 16:26:35 GMT -5
"Things were going exactly the way I wanted them only a couple months ago," Rowan said, trying to argue Keith's simple reasoning. "I had never blacked out, never had to worry about hangovers or the risk of being a bad example for my students. We never went out intending to drink, but it happened, and I can't have that kind of loss of control." Could Keith understand that?
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Post by Keith Evans on May 28, 2011 17:06:05 GMT -5
"Why not?" Keith asked. "There's nothing wrong with losing control every now and then, and you don't do anything on school ground. Besides, we blacked out once, and it wasn't even a full blackout. If you're really worried, we won't drink. If we decide not to drink then we won't, or we could just hang out here, at school." If they didn't go out there weren't any risks, right?
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