(no subject)

[thecoolone]

Bill's tired of resting and tired of sleeping and tired of questioning and tired of not knowing. He's tired of glances full of pity and that overwhelming sensation of people tiptoeing about him, of treating him differently.

As if he can't handle things any more.

And so, when Fleur leaves for a few minutes to go get more tea, or a bowl of soup, or whatever she thinks is best at the moment, Bill throws back the blankets and stands. It's his first time out of bed unassisted since he got here, but he's through playing the invalid; he refuses to do it any longer.

I am not some pitiful creature. Slowly, he makes his way across the room and into the bath and, for the first time, faces himself squarely in the mirror.

He stares.

And stares.

Methodically, he peels off the remaining bandages: the wounds underneath don't look quite so bad as he'd feared. She'd said it was Raven who did the healing; there will have to be thanks proffered yet again. Once he's done examining the scars and scabs, he looks into his eyes in the mirror. One time when they thought he was asleep, Bill thought he heard someone say that one eye was not in the socket when they brought him in.

But it looks all right now. Common wisdom says that eyes are the mirrors of the soul: he gazes into his own, only confident about what he sees because this is not a magical mirror that will try to flatter or cajole him.

He looks for signs that he's... different. That he's fierce or more dangerous or part wolf or... he's not sure what, but he only sees his own eyes looking back at him, dull and glassy with the fever that accompanies trauma and healing.

Bill rests his head against the mirror's glass, eyes closed. "I don't feel different. I don't."

Nor does he want to.

Carefully, he peels out of his sick-bed clothes, foraging in the bureau for fresh things. He dresses with great appreciation for simple things, like being able to move about, then pulls the covers up on the bed, taking a seat in the chair instead. Reaching for his wand, he taps it against his palm a few times, speaking to the room. "I would very much like to see my brother, Charlie." He nods as if that pronouncement made to thin air will make his brother simply appear.

Comments

[leplusbeau]

Fleur pushes the door open with her hip, and with a fresh pot of tea in her free hand.

When she finds Bill in the chair and dressed, she blinks. And slowly smiles.

"Ah, pantz can be very good some dayz, oui?" She puts the tea pot down on their nightstand. Reaching out, she traces the dark scar that run along his ear, just hidden in his hair line. Then his nose.

"Ca va?"

[thecoolone]

"Hullo, love of my life." He stands -- carefully -- and lets his arm rest around her. He's been doing an awful lot of thinking, and he's tired of doing it alone. "It feels good to be out of that bed. I think I decided that if I let myself feel ill, I'll be ill and that's not a state of mind I care to be in, Fleur. So here I am, and I feel better already."

His fingers tangle in her long silvery hair. "And you? You've been such an angel. You've not left my side for more than a few minutes. Are you all right?"

Part of him is convinced that no matter what, he needs to be the one caring for her, not the other way round. Silly as it seems, it makes a difference to him. He wants to be the one to provide for her.

He whispers into her ear. "No one's been notified, have they?"

[leplusbeau]

"You are doing that thing again. That knight in shining leather thing." But she's smiling and gives his rear a gentle smack.

"No, no one. You have one of those colds that makes you transfigure thingz with every sneeze. Waz very sudden. One of my Soho friendz forged a doctor'z letter for me, so I even have the Goblinz convinced. My friend juste thinkz I dragged you away for a very sudden fling in Tahiti. And that I might be pregnant, so I must take you someplace nice to break it to you gently." Very innocently, "I can not help he got that idea."

"How iz your back feeling, hmm?" She slips her arms about his waist and lets him lean against her.

[thecoolone]

"I swore off leather." He gives her a small grin; it doesn't hurt any more to smile. Maybe it's because the bandages are gone; he's glad he took them off.

"My back is fine. Tired from being in bed for too long, but otherwise, I'm all right... fuck." Bill covers his eyes with his hand for just a minute, watching something replay in his mind for the first time.

(He holds onto Fleur for dear life.)

[leplusbeau]

Her giggle gets stuck in her throat. Her arms tighten about his waist, and she holds him up as best she can.

"Bill. Bill. Bill, minet. Take a step back. Lean on me, juste--" She manages to lean him against the back of the chair. "Bill? What iz it? Did you have a pain?"

She keeps her voice calm but her insides her in a knot.

[thecoolone]

"I remembered..."

He shakes off the back of the chair; he doesn't need it. "No pain. No, I'm all right. I just remembered some of what happened."

A flash of shadow and pointed yellow teeth and hot searing pain. But it was a human, I'm certain of that. Certain.

Whatever it was had the foresight to reach into his pocket and take that carefully transcribed piece of parchment. Bill has no idea what was on the parchment, only that it was something important.

"Fleur. There was no... parchment when you found me, was there?" He searches her eyes, desperate.

[leplusbeau]

She bites her lip and steps back a little.

"...wait, a what? Parchment? No, no. There waz..." She bits her lip again. "No, there waz nothing, but. I doubt I we would have found it if there waz. You were. You were very badly off."

Nice of saying 'you were raw meat', check.

[thecoolone]

Moving back, he pounds his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Bloody hell. I can't remember what was on it, but I know it was something. I have to go back there, Fleur. I have to."

His head aches, though, and even as he says the words, he knows it's futile: nobody will let him back there. He doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting back to Saint Paul's, he knows that. There are too many people who'll want to protect him from whatever happened... or from himself.

And realistically and intrinsically he knows the first rule from the curse-breaker's bible: if you're bested on a site, you get no second chance. Someone else gets it; someone else takes the credit. Once you prove yourself a failure, you're branded that way for life.

[leplusbeau]

"I can see with some of our friendz in the office, but. You know the Goblinz have passed the job. You know how they are, quick money." She traces the back of his wrists with her fingertips and holds on. "I have not heard...I do not think they have found anything."

She lightly tugs his hand away from his face. And just looks at him.

"You found something, minet. But it iz not there now."

[thecoolone]

Fuck. He runs his hand through his hair; it gets caught on a matte of something or other -- a tangle, a snarl, blood -- he doesn't know but it has to come out. It has to.

"I'd like a bath or shower, love. Would you join me?"

He knows she's right about everything. Someone else has the job; what he found is gone; the goblins wouldn't give a billywig's sting if anything happened to him. They don't even know.

"Please?"

[leplusbeau]

You take many of those. And she smiles as brightly as she can.

Teasing, "Of course, oui. You know I love to scrub your back. Meanz I can pinch your bum before you can molest me properly."

She slips her arm back around his waist, sliding her hand under his shirt.

"I love you. Let me scrub you in a naked fashion."

[thecoolone]

Tired, he nods.

He will try his best to molest her properly. He thinks he hasn't done that in a long, long time, not since... before.

"Je t'aime." Together, they make their way into the bath.

(Water cleanses. Water is good. Water washes all of it away.)