The week of Christmas was slow for Dominik.  Yes, he'd visited his parents a fair amount, had just come from there in fact, but the house was an absolute zoo.  It was so incredibly boring.  Avoiding most of it, he'd managed somehow to do nothing but ponder Niobe the entire time.  He'd had some luck, actually, with his recent visit to the Daily Prophet.  Carefully withholding and releasing tidbits of information seemed to be helpful in keeping her on the line, but it wasn't enough.  Niobe seemed to hate him even more now -- even as she gave him more.  But truthfully there was only so much that Dominik could leak without putting the people he cared about on the line.  He could count those people on one hand, but they all had theirs in the same cookie jars.

Dominik was beginning to get crafty about it.  You would think that life as an infamous, dangerous Quidditch player would be exciting enough.  But Dominik found it all incredibly droll -- he was usually bored out of his mind!  Finding a fascination in Niobe Thursby, with all of their history and with her resistance to rival an angered Virago, was turning into the one interesting thing he had going on in his life.  It was turning into a pet project, a puzzle, and not a moment went by in which he wasn't tinkering with it in his head.  Working out the kinks.

On this cold day he had broken free of family obligations to lurk outside the Daily Prophet, smoking cigarettes across the way and waiting for Niobe to emerge.  Every time the glass doors opened, he peered hopefully across the cobbles for a spot of dreaded hair. 

And then he saw Maggie Groust, and his heart quickened.  What if he could....  Why had he not thought of this before!

He hunched his shoulders under dark cloak and waited for her to make some headway.  Then he fell on her trail.  He followed her all the way home, and thank Merlin she actually chose to walk.  Hands plunged in pockets, he followed.  He followed until she turned up to a brick building and started fondling keys.  Then he quickened his pace, he started jogging. 

"Hey!  Hey!  Maggie Groust!"  He acted out of breath, a dopey grin on his face like he was just passing by and recognized an old friend. 

"Thought that was you," he said.  "Wow, you live here?  Nutters -- I was just --" he thumbed vaguely in the opposite direction.  "Bagels," he said.  "You know, the bagel shop?  You look well."  He batted her shoulder like they were chums.  "Was sorry to see you run off on Halloween," he lied.  "Was hoping we could bond or someat.  You busy?"  Dominik peered over her shoulder at the entrance nosily.

---

[[The title is in reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a quote from the fourth season, delivered by Riley to a stalkerish Spike ^^]]

(Warning: curse words ahead! )


Maggie knew she was being followed. The cold wind rushed past, bringing with it a hint of strange smells and sounds, prickling the back of her neck. In one hand she clutched her house keys, and in the other she gripped her wand inside her coat pocket. She'd noticed something off a few blocks away from her house, when in the dead quiet of the evening, a twig creaked in the distance, then a shuffle, a footstep. Maggie had glanced back to catch a glimpse of dark robes.

Now she was about a block away, and the prickle in her neck had only gotten stronger. She shook her head at herself, cursing her brilliant idea of walking home to get some exercise, burn off all those cookies and Christmas stuffing. Those Pilates tapes she'd bought on a whim were collecting dust on her shelf, and she'd thought oh, I'll just walk home from work today, even though it was already pitch black out and her shoes weren't exactly built for snow and ice.

Fecking idiot, she kept up the stream of insults in her head, refusing to look back again and confirm her suspicions. If she turned around, whoever was out there would step up their game. She just needed to get close enough to her flat. Maggie could run as soon as she turned the corner, or scream, or maybe she should just apparate, but she'd never been very good at it under stress, and unfortunately those where the times she needed it most. Plus, she hadn't been so keen on apparating ever since the explosion in October, when apparition had felt like jumping into a vat of hot oil. She normally chose to floo. Or walk. Walking. God damnit.

But she was almost there. She saw the red brick, the bay window, her neighbor's motorcycle outside. Good. If she screamed, her neighbor would hear.

Keys prepped in her hand, Maggie walked faster, adrenaline pumping. Then the footsteps sounded - sharp crunches in the snow, speeding up behind her. Maggie whirled around, key held out in front of her like a wand. She wanted to see who or what was coming at her. It'd be different this time. She'd be smarter, faster, braver. No one was going to catch her or hold her at knife-point.

But her mouth gaped open stupidly as she stared at Dominik. Dominik Wiedman, grinning at her in his creepy cloak as if he were Merlin's gift to the world. Announcing his presence, being cheery about it too. Asshole!

Maggie let out the breath she'd been saving in case she needed to scream. She didn't even curse him out, not yet. Slowly, she lowered the keys in her hand, jerking back when he patted her on the shoulder as if they were chums.

"What. The fuck!" She managed, fear turning to anger. And no, anger did not turn to hate. It just settled in her chest and bubbled up inside, causing her hands to clench and her eyes to blaze.

"Bagels?! Bagels my arse! You're lucky I didn't hex you!" Maggie crossed her arms, blocking the door as he peered around her curiously. What did he expect to see, Niobe herself leaning out the window and making googly eyes at him?

Niobe liked to think her friends didn't have any idea about her doomed affair with Dominik, but ever since he'd shown up at the Prophet a few weeks ago, dangling information like candy, the whole office knew there was something between them. The messy situation made her worry for Niobe, which was why Dominik's dopey grin and excuses made her want to snarl at him now. She felt her lip curl.

"This?" Maggie gestured around her angrily. "Not cool. Don't pretend like you want to be buddy-buddy with me. I don't like you," she pointed at him. "You and Niobe aren't good for each other," Another point. "And your daily pile of cigarette butts on the ground do not impress anyone. It's pathetic. So don't think you can just follow me home like a lost puppy," an overlarge puppy who was bigger and stronger than her, but she was ignoring that. "And expect me to be happy to see you, to not know what you're really after. You know what? She's probably still at work. She's probably avoiding you."

Niobe lived right across the street, after all. Her windows were dark, curtains drawn. Maggie had noticed Dominik skulking around for two months, emerging from Niobe's flat at odd hours. She didn't like it. Not one bit.

Aaaahh feeeehck, wha've I done....

Dominik circumambulated round and round the thought, wincing visibly, his face contorted grossly as the wrath of Margaret Groust lay down upon him.  Oh, this was not pleasant.  This was not pleasant at all.  It wasn't sexy like when Niobe did it.  This was just... this was just painful.  But still he couldn't do a thing about it.  He couldn't even be angry about her skewering of him, so help the poor bastard, he was in love.  In love with... with this person's friend.  So help the poor bastard!

"Aaahh...."  He tried to interject.  It didn't stop.  She was jabbing her finger at him now and -- what was that?  She knew about the --?  Oh.

Oh?

Oh!   

"Nnoo," blurted out Dominik, panicking.  How the hell hadn't he known her neighbors were friends?  What had they seen?  Oh, brilliant. 

"That was -- I -- Oh, bugger me!"  His frustration was evident as he threw his arms out but, more than seeming his usual bad-boy self, Dominik seemed... helpless and desperate, like a fragile little boy, begging his mum for something sweet.  "You've gotta help me," he practically pleaded.  "Maggie, I --"  He looked confused for a moment (lost puppy?) and then gesticulated wildly at himself as if to say 'Just look at me!' 

"I'm an idiot!" he declared, enunciating emphatically.  Yet the statement was directly geared toward her, an offering.  "I need help, I'm deficient..., I'm daft!"

He was appealing to her low opinion of him now, but there was something so pathetic about the way he threw up his arms at himself, relenting and admitting his own follies, that made him seem totally harmless.  The thing was, that it had ceased to be an act.  He was still trying his part, but, this lowly opinion was absolute truth.  So thoroughly disparaged was he that Dominik first dopily reclined in a pseudo happy happenstance and, denied, he all but broke apart.  Yes, he conceded.  I am a dufus!  But, I need you.  It was on par with begging.  He was at his wit's end.  Niobe.  The name was his mantra.  And this was a face of the famous Dominik Skye Wiedman that had been seen by a seldom few.

"I am an idiot," he conceded again, with as much vigor as before.  "And hey look," he said, pointing his brows upward and still making motions like a desperate man.  "Y'know it's not aboutta change.  This thing'll go on for ages, and y'know it.  Least you can do -- is take me in and gimme a chat, or some advice, Gordon Bennett I'll take anything I can get.  I'm right serious, Mags, I'm dyin' for it, please.  Invite me in, or someat.  Will yah?  Please?  Oh god please?"

We were well beyond the pathetic by now, as one might've guessed some paragraphs past.  But, believe it or not, Dom hadn't even reached his low yet.  Would he get down on a knee?  Would he spend weeks stalking Margaret Groust to saddle up to Thursby's friend for a word of advice?  A single word, even? 

One might guess he would.  He would try anything at this point, and following Groust home was an easy start.  The hard part, perhaps, was convincing her to let him in enough to guess the contours of their friendship and how best he might start to play the part of... dare we say, boyfriend?

Maggie raised her eyebrows and continued to glare at him, checking off his statements with a mental nod. Yes, he was an idiot. Yes, he was deficient. And yes, he was most certainly daft. Did he need help? Probably. But Maggie was not in the mood to play therapist.

Her heart rate began to slow down, however, and though she still clutched her keys in one hand, it wasn't quite a death grip. He'd scared the hell out of her, sneaking up on her like that, and one part of her brain was thinking 'it's Dominik, and he's pathetic and annoying but not very scary', and the other part of her brain was going 'Uh no, you idiot, he's into that pure blood superiority crap, he's stalking Niobe, and the only thing keeping him from going to Azkaban is his Quidditch-playing prowess. Yeah, really harmless. Sure'.

And yuck! He was related to the temperamental pixie, Dazmond. Another point against him.

She narrowed her eyes at him, just to show him he wasn't gaining any ground here. But holy fecking hippogriff, was he begging, now? This was almost amusing. At the very least newsworthy. Maggie fought the urge to take a photo and write this down. Dominik Wiedman: groveling.

"Ok, first of all," Something in the context of his groveling had struck a nerve, and she was pissed again. "No, this is not going to go on for ages. It's been going on for months, and that's already way too long, in my opinion."

Obviously, her opinion was not to be contested.

"And no, I am not inviting you in! We're not friends. We're not going to be friends. If you really want to talk to me, you're going to have to deal with the cold." Until she'd had enough, gone inside, and shut the door in his face. Maggie knew better than to let a soul-sucking vampire into her home (otherwise known as a clingy man-child). He'd keep popping up until she drove a stake through his heart. On that note...

"But don't even think about taking this as an invitation to lurk on my doorstep whenever you please. If I find even one cigarette butt..." she trailed off, glaring at him darkly and pointing at the steps of the porch. Maggie couldn't help but wonder if she was giving him even this much because, shite, he'd followed her home and she couldn't be sure what he'd do if she just told him to sod off.

"Say what you need to say and be quick about it." Her voice was grim, no-nonsense. Just to show how completely calm and collected she was. Ha.

"Okay!  Alright, yeah," agreed Dominik eagerly.  "I promise," he said, crossing his heart by making an X over it and holding his hands up in surrender, "No cigarette butts, and no lurking on the doorstep.  I got it."  He nodded, his breath steaming against the cold air and puffing out into little white clouds.

As soon as she said what might as well have been 'Get set, on your marks, GO', Dominik made like he was being timed. 

"We made a go for it in the past, me'n'her and, it got up n' left but, now I'm with her again it's like -- it's like I've a new lease on life, y'know?  I'm just wild for her, not being with her it just, it makes me hurt and -- I don't even like who I am, I can't expect her to.  But I can change -- I can do something different, I can help her career, be a better man, work on my issues all that.  If you could just give a poor miserable bloke a single word of advice, what is it?  Where in the bloody hell do I start?  Cause I might be a pathetic waste of a man right now but, y'know, that's now, I'm just flounderin'.  And you -- you could do a bit by whippin out your Christmas spirit?  Is it flowers?  Is it romance?  Is it ...  Please?  I do love her; I might be a pisser but I do bloody love her and you've gotta believe me.  Yeah?  That's all I got.  Was it good?  You with me still?  I dunno what to say, I just don't, I'm a lump Maggie Groust, a lump.  ...And, well?"

He was getting better and better at humiliating himself.  In front of reporters.

Dominik squinted at her as they stood out in the cold together, not really fooling himself that he'd find a co-conspirator in this one anymore, but hanging on the limb of his last words like it was the last thread of his rope.

(Warning: F-word ahead)


Whatever Dominik was blathering on about sailed over Maggie's head. She let out an exasperated sigh as she stamped her feet to ward off the chill. But no way, no way in hell was she letting him into her flat. She gritted her teeth and listened half-heartedly, brow furrowing at all the Christmas spirit and talk of flowers. Blech.

"I don't know what you're on about, but you keep saying you love her, right?" That was a reoccurring theme from him. He loved her and he was an idiot. Maggie couldn't argue with the last part.

"Honestly," she paused. He looked so damn lost. "Okay, honestly? I haven't known Niobe for long, but she's not really into the whole relationship thing. And there's nothing wrong with that," Mags emphasized, raising her eyebrows at him.

"Sure, she might change later and suddenly be all lovey-dovey, but you can't count on it. You want to change into a better person, then fine. Great. But that has to be something you do for yourself. Not for her."

Maggie had no idea if he was even capable of comprehending that, but she barreled on anyway.

"Mooning over her, following her around, acting desperate is only going to irritate her and push her away, and then you won't even have a fuck buddy anymore."

Crass, but true. Maggie wasn't too concerned about offending his 'delicate sensibilities'.

"You need to chill out. Because your stalking behavior is gonna get you a stunner in the arse one of these days," she finished darkly, implying that she'd have no problem following through on that threat.

"Yeah!  Yeahyeah," said Dominik excitedly, gesturing emphatically as Maggie finally got it.  He loved her!  He leaned in, eager to hear the secret to winning Niobe's slippery heart.

Squinting with his hands plunged into his pockets, Dominik tried to rifle through what she was saying by translating what he didn't want to hear into usable phrases.  Relationship?  No no, she loves me.  She just won't let herself show it, he convinced himself.  And in the act of translation, Dominik was half absent from the string of words he had literally begged out of Maggie Groust.  Why would he change into something better on his own account?  If it wasn't going to get him Niobe, then the idea was out.  Maggie's very sensible advice about personal responsibility and self-promoted growth was translated into:  Don't change who you are.  That won't work.  She'll like you even less.

The only part that really penetrated his thick skull in those fleeting moments was the bit about mooning over and losing a fuck buddy.  The last bit -- the warning -- he didn't even hear.  Dominik was scoffing.

"We're not bonk buddies," he said with a derisive laugh.  But when pressed to say what they were, Dominik came up completely blank.  For a moment as he stared off into space, it seemed like he might've started facing the music.  But really what he was doing was telling himself that she loved him, he could tell it, she just... she just didn't know it yet.

"Stop trying, eh?  Really?"  He looked doubtful.  Take away his stalker tendencies (what Dominik would blindly call his romanticism) and Niobe would probably get distracted by something else and then she'd never remember that she loved him.  "How does that....  You mean play hard to get, right?  Then I might come up trumps?  She'll come to me, yeah?"  Slowly formulating the words like an infant working out a piece of logic, he worked all her advise into a consolidated package:  "If I give her space, she'll see that she's got feelings."

But that just didn't make sense!

"What if she doesn't respond to that?  What if I've bodged it up so bad I go lax and she gets all relieved and starts bonkin' someone else?  Whew, it's cold out here," he tagged on casually.  "Sure could go for a cocoa or someat."

No, no, no! Every time Dominik uttered some modicum of sense, and his normally confused expression brightened for an instant to understanding, Maggie had hope. Hope that he got it. Then he'd ruin it by talking more, and revealing that he didn't get it at all!

After his last questions and not so subtle angling for cocoa, Maggie threw her hands up in the air and made a growling sound in her throat. A literal growl. Then she turned, put the key in the lock, and opened the door to her flat, ducking inside.

A second later she poked her head back out and scowled at him. "Well? Are you coming in so we don't both freeze our arses off?"

This was probably the biggest mistake of her life. Bigger than trying to get the scoop on Cin Tawse, and failing. Bigger than the time, in a fit of anger, she'd told her younger brother to 'go back to the orphanage'. Bigger than whatever stupid choices she might make in the future!

But aggravation clouded Maggie's judgment. Dominik was pathetic, and he kept looking at her with those puppy dog eyes. Why had she ever thought he was scary? He was just ridiculous, and Niobe could kick him to the curb if she really wanted to, right?

Maggie threw her coat on the stair banister, slipped off her winter boots, and stomped into the kitchen, still scowling. She rummaged around in the pantry until she found what she needed, glancing suspiciously at Dominik in case he had ideas about parking on the couch and never, ever moving.

"Make your own damn cocoa," she told him, slapping the container on the kitchen counter. "I don't have marshmallows so don't ask," Maggie continued. "And you'll probably have to wash a mug. I'm not doing it."

Hospitality taken care of, she leaned against the fridge door and crossed her arms.

"Ugh!" She burst out suddenly. "You just don't get it! I don't mean 'play hard to get'. That implies that you expect her to want you because of it. I mean, give her space. Real space, Dominik. No 'oh I'll leave her alone for a week and then pester her again'. No 'oh, I'll leave her alone for a week but pester her friends'," Maggie quirked a warning eyebrow at him.

"Spaaaace," She gestured with her hands, as if he needed a visual aid.

Very obediently, Dominik stayed rooted to the spot as Maggie strangled the door locks and stormed inside.  He took his hands out of his pockets and blew into them for warmth, his eyes fixed on the open doorway.  Not until she reappeared with an invitation did he saunter in and in that moment, much as with a vampire, that sacred boundary was broken as the door closed behind him.

He took the time that she was taking to vent her frustrations on her Winter clothes to shamelessly gaze into the room's as yet hidden depths; -- Dominik loved to look in on other people's lives.  There was something in it -- something in its very ethereal fibers that caused a person to temporarily feel alive; it was like peering into a soul:  exhilarating and indescribably fascinating.

And when she demanded from the kitchen that he should accomplish the task of indulging in her cocoa by his own devices, Dominik couldn't help but feel some sense of smug satisfaction; for he was recognizing in Margaret Groust the traits that attracted his mark, so that in the woman before him was suddenly reflected a God, aka:  Niobe Thursby.  Something slowed in him as he traipsed cozily into the kitchen, still looking curiously about the place even as she derailed him verbally and made comment on his status of 'pest'.  By his mellow, dopey readiness to take the heat he seemed to be quite used to such frustrations being directed his way.  Completely unmoved.  He only stopped looking around like he was at a museum to settle his gaze on Maggie when she became quiet, and she quirked a brow at him pointedly with her arms crossed over her chest.  Made for an easy translation:  Don't get comfortable.

Too late.

"Hey now, haven't fouled yet," he said dismissively.  Dominik slid his dark wand along his body and out of his pocket with agility, setting the dishes to work without hesitation.  Since he might as well impress upon her his extreme usefulness and potential for good, Dominik set his magic to do all of her dishes and divided his attention to seek out the milk.  He looked over his shoulder at her visual representation of extreme spaciness. 

"Hmm," said Dominik, who was still convinced that leaving Niobe alone was a terribly bad idea for his interests.  He paused for a beat.  "So you mean, space?  Total, uninterrupted space?  Are you sure you aren't just trying to be rid of me?  Cause I'm not entirely convinced that she's going to figure it out without a demonstration.  I mean, not that she's not bright!"  He stood quickly from his stooped-over position, the milk sloshing in its bottle.  "She's smart, I know that.  Maybe not when it comes to the heart, but...."

He heated the milk right in the mugs (for he'd made her one as well in a deliberate tactic to impress), and as Dominik's thoughts continued to meander in the air, the cocoa powder was stirred in with lazy magics. 

"I guess last time we talked was as good an opening for space as any," he thought aloud.  "So now I can just, y'know, go to her and say someat like, 'I'm giving you space cause I've been all dim, and I'll be over here if you wanna -- y'know.'  And then we can have a hump, so she knows what she's missing and everything.  Then I go and stay gone, and she comes back to me, right?" 

He slid a hot cocoa in Maggie's direction and sipped his own, leaning against her kitchen counter -- the very image of casual.

Maggie had never met anyone before who was so... so... impervious to her bitching. It was like he wore a Maggie-proof shield, and every word she said filtered through the rosy haze of Niobe in front of him. Complete with hearts floating in the air. It made her want to gag!

She merely glared at him as he washed the dishes for her (not just the mug), and set about magicking two cups of cocoa. He was just trying to get on her good side. She would not be waylaid from her mission by politeness!

As he explained his strange, delusional thought process to her, Maggie felt relieved that he at least seemed to be catching on to what space meant. As in, not just a funny hand gesture. However, he was still missing one very important point. She was tempted to just gloss over it, shout 'by jove, I think he's got it!', and make this visit easier for the both of them. They could share two mugs of hot cocoa together and it would almost be normal, if not for the fact that Dominik had followed her home, and it was Dominik.

She stared at the mug suspiciously for a moment when he passed it over to her, then took a sip, eyes narrowing at him over the rim.

Maggie was not the type of person who could just let things go, or take the easy way out.

"You're halfway there," she muttered, as if he were a child learning his letters.

She set the mug down on the counter and sighed. "Yeah, you should go to her and tell her you'll leave her alone. And then follow up on that with, you know, actually leaving her alone. With me so far?"

Maggie quirked an eyebrow at him again. "Now this is the tough part. You might want to take notes."

So she'd decided to educate him. That didn't mean she had to be nice about it.

"You and Niobe each go on your merry way for a while. And later, she might, she might decide that she wants to continue this... whatever it is, with you." Bang buddies. That was all it was, as far as Maggie knew.

"But!" She pointed her finger in the air and waved it for extra effect. "But she also might decide that she just wants to move on. Live her life. Without you."

Mags paused for a second to study his face. "If that happens," she spoke slowly, trying to get through to him. "That doesn't mean 'try harder'. It doesn't mean pop by her work or lurk on her doorstep or follow her friends home again. Alright? It'll mean she wants to be left alone."

She crossed her arms and frowned at him, "And if you really care about her, if you really want her to be happy, you have to respect what she decides."

Guilt trip!

Wait a minute.  She actually meant that?  Leave Niobe alone forever and just accept whatever she decided?  That... that would be disastrous.  He had no doubt in his mind what she'd decide, left to her own devices.

"Euagh," said Dominik.  He was like a little baby rejecting his food.  "Don't you think I've tried that?"  He hadn't, but he sounded very adamant nonetheless.  "We've spent nearly ten years in the dark cause we couldn't see a bloody light.  What I'm trying to do is turn the light on!"  Maggie just wasn't getting the bigger picture here.  It was Niobe's consistent rejection and the fact that she could so easily forget he existed that made him try so hard in the first place to make her see.

Suddenly the absence of marshmellows in his hot cocoa was a glaring mockery.  Not that Maggie's glaring and mocking weren't palpable enough on their own.  It was just that if he left it all alone like she was saying, he would never eat marshmellows again.  He had come here for a key, and she was showing him to the door; it just only occurred to him which side of the door he was on.

"Augh!  Don't you bloody get it?!"

His energy level was on the rise.  A familiar internal tremor overcame him and he shut his eyes harshly, cursing loudly, all as the mug of hot cocoa -- with its total lack of marshmellowy goodness -- was hurled across the room with all of the weight of his Beater's strength.  It exploded against a cabinet.  The happy, bubbling dishes floating by his magics, and hard at work becoming clean, collapsed in a clattering pile in Margaret Groust's sink.  The combined cacophony was enough to make one's ears ring.

"I'm not a bloody animal!" he roared.  There were throbbing veins involved now, and he was hunched forward with both hands planted firmly on the surface before him, a fire storming in his eyes.  "I. just. need. her. to see," he said. 

Having lost all sense of rationality, operating on adrenaline cooked up by what was going on months of frustration, Dominik was having none of Maggie's 'leave it to fate' speech.  Perhaps he had been on to something -- and perhaps he still was -- but in that 'this is the way it is' moment Dominik had to release the incredible tension that had been mounting since his last good aggressive outburst, and better yet since Halloween when Niobe tipped back a glass of Scotch and said yes to him.  That -- that was fate.  Dominik the animal was caught up in a positive feedback loop whose only hope of self-regulation was a violent implosion lacking any sense of social grace.

His frustration was evident, too, as he spoke, his face an overcrowded mantle of expression.  "I know that's the way it's supposed to work," he said angrily.  "But this is different!  It's -- I can't just leave it up to her.  She doesn't know what she wants!  Niobe is impossible.  She's too prideful.  That won't work!"

He growled, pushing off the counter with great force, and began pacing the kitchen broodily, as oblivious to the trail of muck coming off his boots as he was to the shattered mess of mug and brown puddles going drip-drip across the room.

Domink had apparently never taken a Relationships 101 class, and Maggie had never taken Stalking 101, or what not to do when someone follows you home. But shite, some of it had to be common sense. Don't encourage the stalker by talking to him. Don't invite him in for cocoa. Don't leave out the marshmallows?

There were cracks in his calm, unnaturally passive exterior now. The raised voice and cussing made it hard for her to focus on his words, though his words wouldn't have made much sense anyway. Ten years in the dark? Mags had no idea what he was on about.

"Augh!  Don't you bloody get it?!"

Before Maggie could tell him she didn't, there went her coffee mug, shattering against the cabinet. She jumped and gaped at him, glancing at the dishes that had fallen in the sink with a loud clang. 

Why had she ever thought he was harmless? A puppy dog? If this was what Niobe had to deal with, she suddenly had a lot more sympathy for her.

No matter how tough Maggie tried to act, and no matter the danger she barreled into for the sake of a story, or in this case, her friend, she was not made out of stone. She crossed her arms and stared at him with the startled look of a bird about to be beaned by a bludger. She started to edge away.

Maggie stopped, a good ten feet away from the pacing, ranting, unhinged Mr. Hyde in her kitchen, and lingered at the edge of the hallway where she could see her coat rumpled on the floor. Her coat, with her wand in the coat pocket, because she never thought about having it right next to her when she was inside her own home.

"Okay," she started, eyeing him warily. "You need to leave now." She was no longer glaring. Were her crossed arms enough to convince him that she meant business?

"Women!" Dominik kept saying, in between blasphemies and strings of poetic nonsense.  His heavy boots squeaked against the tile floors every time he abruptly turned in a new direction. 

He had really blown his top. 

Holding his hands out in front of him, palms up in a gesture of exasperation, he focused on nothing in particular as he simply dodged obstructions in his path.  Except for the low cabinet he kicked.  That sprung open and hit him in the shin.  When he kicked it again, it splintered.

"It's bullshit!" he said, stomping away from the offensive cabinet door and advancing toward Groust.  His eyes finally focused on her, though not narrowly.  Dominik was obviously rather oblivious to the stance she had taken, and he hadn't even heard her instruction to 'leave now'.

"No matter what I do, it's all loss," he was saying.  "What kind of life?  I'm fecking pure magic man here!  Fought in a war!  Handsome!"  Here he stopped.  Right in front of Maggie.  He grabbed her by the shoulders and sort of shook her.  Not roughly, but his grip on her was quite firm.  His face, right in hers.

"What does it bleeding take," he pleaded, his voice loud but now less angry, and more desperate.

A strange state of hysteria bubbled beneath the surface, enough so Maggie nearly laughed when the cabinet door banged against his shin. When he turned and started pacing again, and then kept walking towards her, her eyes widened and she glanced at her coat on the floor. Not enough time to reach her wand. She was too freaked out by his behavior to differentiate between what could be malice in his eyes and what was just anger at the situation. She barely listened as he started listing off his qualities and the reasons why women should like him.

Though Dominik was her own height and not especially muscular, Maggie felt trapped when he hulked over her. Her calm, rational 'you need to leave' had gone in one ear and out the other. He was so close she could count the number of hairs on his chin.

She started to edge away to the side, knowing if she stepped back, she'd be up against the wall. But before she could get very far, he grabbed her and shook her. It didn't hurt, but the shock of it woke her up, sparked a fire.

That did it.

"Get out of my face!" Maggie burst out, pushing him away.

Why was this shite happening to her again!? She'd had enough of crazy men taking out their frustrations on her! This was her home. She'd invited the bastard in, even offered him hot cocoa. And now he was throwing a tantrum, smashing her things around, and acting like a raving lunatic!

With a frustrated growl, she stalked down the hallway, scooped up her coat, and patted down the pockets until she found her wand. Maggie whirled around, and though she didn't point the wand at him, she gripped it at her side as she stormed back towards him.

"You're a complete arse!" She yelled, not caring that her neighbor downstairs had started banging on the ceiling with a broom because of all the commotion.

"No wonder she can't stand you! She's never going to care about you, especially when you act like a two-year old! She's not your babysitter! The only thing you have going for you is Quidditch," she pointed at him. "Big freaking deal, there. You're not going to get someone like Niobe! Not for the long haul."

She sucked in a breath, two angry spots of color on her cheeks. "So give up and get over her. And get the fuck out of my flat!"

Another point, this time towards the door.

It was reactions all around.  Dom's shaking shook Maggie, and her shaking shook him right back.  A tiny chink inside and it was all despair from rage in a single second flat.  How harsh she turned!  Dom's face flashed the hurt he felt as sobriety hit and he found himself in the middle of a mess of his own making.  He was such a sodding idiot.  She was completely right.  He'd never get someone like Niobe.  Or someone like Ro.  He was going to be alone forever.

"I --"  He faltered, his voice breaking as he felt a dire hollowness inside.  This was it, right.  This was karma biting him in the ass.  This was Azkaban every minute.  Being free was more painful than being locked in a cell in the middle of the ocean.  Oh, woe!  Woe!

But Dominik had to put it right.  Even if, at this point, he was shall we say.  Overstaying his welcome.

He reached out at the air in an incomplete motion.  He didn't look at her.  "Ah feck Mags," he said quietly.  "So sorry then, pet.  You've seen it, yeah.  But I'm going to make it all right.  You'll see that too, one day you'll see it.  I'm going to be --"  He stood up a little taller, his gaze rising to just above her head.  "Be a better man."

And then, weirdly, he just turned and left.  He closed the door behind him gently, and walked past the approaching neighbor who was red with anger without even looking up.  Calm and somber, he walked back up the snowy street.  Not in the direction of bagels, nor Niobe's flat.