Kaleidoscope || t. scamander

Hurt

Roo was persistent throughout the next few days, but it was clear that Theseus didn't want to have anything to do with her no matter how much she pushed at his barriers. He would mutter a short greeting upon entering his office, but that was about it for their conversation. He wouldn't glance her way, wouldn't even acknowledge her presence and didn't even bother informing her about his whereabouts. The only indication she had about hid activities were the red stamped cases she would gather into a neat pile at the end of the day, a sign that he was working through the cases, even though he barely gave her the time of the day.

It was getting tiring. Coming to the office each day felt unwelcome, as if she was trudging into a field of delicate, thin ice that could give away at any given moment. Granted he had enough courtesy not to make her life a living hell, but acting as though she was invisible wasn't any better and sometimes Roo felt like screaming.

If they could just be courteous with each other, Roo would've been satisfied with that. She didn't desire friendship and understood that he needed his space, whatever the heck that meant, but that didn't give him grounds to act like he had a stick up his ass.

"Why don't you just ask him what his problem is?" Tina Goldstein, another Auror and a distant family friend that Roo had had the joy of meeting a few months ago at the start of her training, sat beside the said young woman as she sipped on her cold iced coffee. The two witches had started meeting up more frequently now that Tina had moved to London due to her current romantic ties to Newt. Tina knew of Theseus's ways, and while Newt had always been biased when talking about his brother, she was also aware of the fellow Auror's grief.

"I can't." Roo's shoulders dropped, "he's too intimidating. I can't look at him in the eye without flinching."

"Well, you have to understand his circumstances."

"What do you mean?" Roo frowned.

"During the battle with Grindelwald," Tina's voice filled with an empty kind of sadness, the same tone used by all wizards who had experienced the tale and lived to tell the story, "the only reason why we managed to get ourselves out of his trap in time was because of Leta Lestrange. She was Theseus's fiancée."

Roo's jaw dropped, "what? Why didn't you tell me?"

That made much more sense. All of a sudden she felt like all the puzzle pieces had fallen right where they were meant to be. A faint memory made her realize the gravity of her words at their first encounter and she couldn't help but clasp a hand upon her mouth.

Beside her, Tina could only sigh, "I didn't want you to pity him. That's not what he would've wanted, trust me. And plus, wasn't my place to tell."

Roo opened her mouth. But then realized she had nothing to say, and shut it closed.

"Now, don't you give him that look of yours." Tina said.

"What look?"

"The look you have on your face every time you see a puppy in a pet shop. That's what your expression looks like right now."

"But-- his fiancée. That must be horrible." Roo mumbled, causing the older woman to sigh in agreement.

Roo tried not to let her eyes linger too much on Theseus's face as she walked back into the office. She kept her gaze lowered and focused on her feet, hoping that he couldn't hear the thundering heartbeat inside her chest that seemed to resonate through her ears as though the room was filled with only that sound alone. But the man barely noticed her as he flicked through his papers, eyebrows kissing at the centre with his lips pressed together in a firm line. Roo took this chance to observe him, wondering what was going on behind those stone cold blue orbs, behind that eternally stern and cold face he presented to her at work. He surely wasn't like this in his everyday life. There must have been moments of happiness, moments where he'd smile freely and joke around like a little boy, but seeing him now, she couldn't even imagine what it felt like to have Theseus smile at her, not when his circumstances were filled with pain and chaos and just sadness.