| Details for 3 A.M. |
| Summary: | A very angry Josefa gives Gideon a rude awakening. |
| Date: | September 22, 1937 |
| Location: | 1D, Hoxton Apartments, London |
| Related: | The Wolf in Wolfgang |
| Characters |
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Hoxton Apartments - 1D, London
The dingy little flat isn't much to look at. Just a single room with a kitchenette near the entryway, and a door on the far end of the room leading to a restroom off to the right. A tiny window lets in what little remaining light penetrates the London fog and the alleyway outside, barely illuminating the small bed and side table with an oil lantern atop it. There is also a worn and raggedy reading chair, with several dog-eared books stacked on the floor next to it. A tiny table and chair near the kitchenette serve as the only eating surface in the apartment, and are usually host to yesterday's edition of the Daily Prophet.
It's near about 3 am when the pounding starts. Perhaps a heavier sleeper might be able to disregard it as the normal sounds of a rough neighborhood, but it's definitely coming from the door. If he gets to it quickly enough, she won't simply start blasting at the lock with every spell she knows, hoping something sticks. (Or rather, unsticks.) Gideon will find a very irate Josefa, her hair, usually curled and pinned, is long and straight, dark against the white of the bathrobe that's the only thing she wears — besides the wand clutched in her pounding fist. Even her feet are bare, but dirty, because she just walked from Clerkenwell to Hoxton and nobody wants to do that barefoot.
Gideon springs from his bed, snatching up his wand, suddenly quite alert at the violent banging on his door. He immediately falls into a routine. He checks the window…nobody outside. A muttered Spell Check Charm reveals that his protective enchantments are still in place. So he moves to the door, standing to the side as he uses his wand to push open the peephole. A quick glance tells him it's…not a hatchet man come to kill him in the night. Just his neighbour…looking like she's come to kill him in the night. The door swings halfway open, and Josefa is greeting by a baggy-eyed, shirtless Gideon, arm propped against the doorjamb. "Miss Loucks. A bit late to borrow a cup of sugar, is'n it?"
Josefa rises up to her full height — which is pathetic, to say the least — and glowers at Gideon, raising her wand and just barely not stabbing him in the nose with it. "I swear to the Lord above, I will make you vomit slugs, Adamantus Gideon. How dare you go about talking about me to other people. You've no right."
Gideon sighs and gently sweeps his hand to push her wand hand aside. "Fine. You feel violated, and now you've violated my sleep. We're even. Anything else you need to get off of your chest?" As his heart rate calms, and exhaustion returns, he stifles a yawn.
Fuck the 'civilized' way of dealing with confrontation. When he moves aside one hand, Josefa pulls her other fist back and aims for his stomach. "Now we're even," she informs him. "And I have plenty more I'd like to say to you, but since you've expressed nothing but antipathy, I shan't bother."
Gideon takes the hit, but he's no stranger to physical violence, and his instincts kick in. He snatches for her wrist, but manages only to bat her away. "Mind yourself, Loucks," he growls. "I'll put up with so much from you. But I'll be damned if I tolerate being attacked for doing my job. Now get yourself to bed and sleep off whatever has got you in such a state."
"You'll put up with it?" Josefa's voice now rises into a shriek of outrage. "You'll put up with me, will you? Unauthorized tracking spells, stalking me, hunting down men to tell them to stay away from me? I ought to report you! Do you know I was having a perfectly nice evening with Mister Montague before you had to pop up and ruin it? You're not even physically in my presence and yet you're still everywhere I go!" She scowls at him, planting her hands on her hips. "I like you, Inspector Gideon, but this is not healthy behavior."
Gideon's weary expression quickly turns into his trademark steely glare. He leans in toward her, speaking low at first. "Do I have to repeat myself? It's. My. JOB!" He stands upright, now completely awake and entirely agitated. "Now, go home." The door begins to swing shut.
Josefa inhales deeply and shakes her head, letting him shut the door in her face before stalking back to her own apartment and slamming the door behind her.