Yvon Leffoy (yvon) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-07-27 00:18:00 |
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Current mood: | uncertain |
Late Monday afternoon, 14 September 1942, at St Mungo's Hospital in Londinium...
Yvon Malfoy never slept well at Mungo’s, not even on the couch in his private office with the pile of overstuffed pillows filched from the Manor. He’d never been in one of the beds before. They were definitely worse. If he’d had any sense, he should have told Wilkes and Yang to put Alessio on his couch after his treatment. There were no private rooms to be had—not with the usual run of serious casualties in from the front, not with the lightning rains, not with the war. There were two other patients in this ward, hidden behind curtains like theirs, which meant that people: journeymen, nurses, laundresses, tea-cart girls—flowed through the room like water. Not very good security, Yvon thought, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and wondered when he had begun to think like that.
Alessio had burrowed in close up under his arm and the blankets, and was still, through some miracle, sleeping. Did Mungo’s need a high security ward? There were a couple of secure rooms for treating prisoners brought in from Azkaban Fortress, or suspected lycanthropes—it had been unheard of in Britannia, but veterans had brought it back from the front lines unwittingly. There were two or three rooms on the top floor for people like his mother or the Minister of Magic, but Yvon was mildly appalled with himself for even imagining that he and Alessio rated such luxury, and anyway, they were probably occupied; they’d been under orders to send people home as soon as they were well enough to be nursed there for months, and Yvon hated it.
There was a letter on the bedside table. He opened it; it was from Lavinia Scalara, with conflicting, confusing instructions: Go home. No, don’t. Whatever you do, stay safe. How was he supposed to do that in a world at war, never mind the threat to the sacred royalty? He called out to the tea-girl. “You. Turpin? Black tea, please, I need to wake up.”
Kitty Turpin gave him a dark look as she poured the tea. “What are you doing in here, Magister?”
“I hope to be drinking tea very soon,” said Yvon. “Hopefully it’s made from actual tea leaves, and not the dust in the bottom of the crock.”
Turpin glared at him. “Suppose it’s too bad Rosier ain’t here to make it just how you like, sir.”
“She’s at school and I hope she stays there.” Yvon rolled his eyes at her. “Are you this smart with the patients?”
Turpin shrugged. “They ain’t this smart with me,” she said, and tossed a lump of sugar in.
Yvon took the tea and waited for her to leave, but she stood there, a moment, and stared at them. “What is it?”
“Are you really going to…? You and him, I mean.”
“That isn’t your business,” Yvon said curtly, “whatever it is you’re wanting to know, and besides, I know you’ll tell everyone else in the dorms that we are, no matter what I actually say.”
“You’re just upset because I spoilt your book on Clutterbuck.” Turpin shrugged.
“No, Clutterbuck did that.” Yvon looked back down at the letter. He trusted Mrs Scalara. He trusted Lucius. He trusted his mother. None of them had any specific information and he was absolutely miserable at any sort of divination himself. Mrs Scalara’s charts were accurate, but she didn’t have his nativity or his mother’s, and she wasn’t inclined to be vague, which meant she didn’t really know what she was warning him about. Lucius had been on the land at the time, and Lucius had been made king, after a fashion, when they’d all thought her dead; he’d only heard a bit of the story.
So Lucius might know what the land wanted…but it made no sense for the land to want him elsewhere, except Brocéliande proper, and that was impossible. The only thing he could be sure of was that Lucius was awfully frightened to want the family separated; someone was in very grave danger, and no-one knew who it was.
Yvon felt Alessio stir, just then, under his arm as he drank his tea. He was waking up, and it was no small wonder, really, given how loudly Turpin had spoken. Alessio blinked, and Yvon wondered why he’d never noticed before how harsh the light was in some of the wards. But he was smiling: that crooked smile that always made Yvon smile back.
“You’re here,” Alessio finally said, his voice rough with sleep.
“Where else would I be?” Yvon murmured, looking down at him.
Alessio shrugged. “I’m just glad you’re here. Best medicine going. Also, you smell better than the floor-wash, that smell gets in everything.” He glanced at the parchment in Yvon’s lap. “What is it?”
“There’s trouble at home,” said Yvon, yawning. “We’re to stay here or someplace else safe in Londinium until we’re sent for—those are Maman’s orders. But Lavinia thinks we should go straight back.”
“What kind of trouble?” Alessio asked, his smile melting away.
Yvon sighed and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Danger to all the sacred royalty. Nothing more specific than that. I do so love diviners. But the only bad dream you’ve had has been about Lucius…?” He brushed the hair back out of Alessio’s eyes.
Alessio nodded. “Just about Lucius.”
Yvon swallowed. “Are you sure it wasn’t at home, what you dreamed?” If Lucius was in danger, then they had to go home, to protect him, and the Manor had towers, four of them, at least one that it wouldn’t even take lightning to fell.
“No. It was definitely not home,” said Alessio, and frowned. “It looked like the observatory. We used to go up there during the day, when no-one was using it, before they made you a prefect and you had your own room, remember?”
“Quite well,” said Yvon, and kissed his cheek. “I would trust you to identify the observatory. Yes.”
Alessio shrugged. “Should we stay here? I mean, hiding here somewhere safe has to be better than travelling, right? Or do you want to go home?”
“I want…” Yvon sighed. He trusted both Dracaena and Mrs Scalara. Lucius was wise beyond his years, and rarely insisted on things, even when he was the one who carried the sovereignty. And Lucius wanted them to stay, or at least to stay away. But where? “I want a lot of things. I want out of here. I want to be alone with you. I don’t know if we can, at home. Be really alone. Everyone’s going to want to see you, now that you’re healed, and I want to keep you to myself for just a little while. I don’t know. I want to get something out of my flat before we go anywhere else, and maybe we’ll hear from them after. And then, if the enemy is targeting the sacred royalty, and it’s still safer not to go home…maybe we ought to go somewhere that no-one would think of looking. We could even take a train to a town where nobody knows us.” He pressed his nose to the tip of Alessio’s. “Is it selfish logic or does it make sense?”
Alessio smiled. “It makes sense. But maybe I like selfish logic.”
Yvon laughed and kissed his forehead. “How do you feel?” he whispered. “Do you think you can walk?”
“I think so. It feels strange, I don’t know, different, but better. I guess I have to get used to it again,” Alessio said, and shook his leg experimentally. “I’m just glad it worked, I don’t ever want to have to use crutches again.”
“Well, I carried you here, so we’d have had to send down for new ones if it hadn’t worked,” Yvon teased him. “I can’t begin to imagine the lecture. Waste of resources, what with the war…”
“You mean you don’t want to carry me everywhere?” Alessio teased back, pouting and looking up at him with wide dark eyes.
“Don’t tempt me,” said Yvon, who was not going to remind him that he only liked being carried when no-one could see. “I think it would make morning rounds rather difficult.”
Alessio laughed. “Probably. But I’d enjoy them.”
Yvon slid out of bed. “Come on,” he said, and brushed himself off before standing up straight and holding his hands out. “Let’s see you get out of bed.”
Alessio sat up gingerly, looking down at his legs, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. Then, he took a deep breath, took Yvon’s hands and got up. It felt strange: he had to find his centre of gravity, which seemed to have shifted again, but then he realised that he was standing on both of his feet, and his face lit up.
Yvon beamed at him.
“It worked,” Alessio said, elated. “I’m probably going to be clumsy until I get used to it again, but it worked.”
Yvon shrugged. “It worked,” he repeated; Alessio had always been a little clumsy from time to time, and he didn’t care anyway. He let go, a little reluctantly, once he was sure that Alessio was properly balanced on his feet.
Alessio rocked a little, experimentally, just feeling the muscles move, then he took a step toward Yvon, grinning like a fiend.
Yvon stepped back, with a slightly wicked smile of his own.
“I think I’m okay,” Alessio told him, his grin growing brighter as Yvon’s smile grew wickeder.
“I think you’re okay, too,” said Yvon, and stepped out of the curtains and into the centre of the ward, still holding his hands out.
“Is that a medical opinion?” Alessio asked, laughing.
“I’m not allowed to give those right now,” Yvon said primly. “You should have seen Maddie’s face when she caught me in a conference.”
“That’s true. You need to take it easy. And I think I probably need to take it easy, too. So we should probably do that together, don’t you think?” Alessio suggested.
Yvon looked down at him speculatively. “You do realise that our version of ‘taking it easy together’ will probably involve a not insignificant amount of physical exertion?” he said, lowering his voice now that they were out in full view of the other two patients, not to mention Kitty Turpin, who was chatting animatedly with an elderly woman in the bed nearest the door.
Alessio smirked. “I’d hoped so.”
“Then by all means let’s get out of here,” said Yvon. “I have no intention of providing Wilkes and Yang with as much amusement as you did with what’s-her-name.” He winked, to show he didn’t mean to insult Valeria.
“There’s a linen closet round the corner,” Kitty Turpin said under her breath. Yvon didn’t spare her a glance, even when her conversation partner started chuckling.
Alessio blushed and ducked his head as they walked out of the room. “Let’s go, yes. Anywhere you want, let’s just go. Don’t I need to be discharged?”
“We’ll stop by the front desk,” said Yvon, mentally making a note to give Kitty Turpin hell when he was back on shift, and not just on Susie’s behalf. “Although…this place has the best wards in Londinium, next to the Ministry.” And then he frowned, because it did—and he didn’t want to draw whatever was hunting him here.
Alessio shook his head. “I’m all right. We can go, it’s all right. Maybe we should go somewhere else entirely, you’re right.”
“I wish Gabrielle were out of the townhouse.” Yvon sighed. “I’m still disgracefully easily winded,” he admitted. “Let’s go back to my flat if you don’t want to stay here—I left some things there that I don’t want to lose track of—and then we can go somewhere else. Widdershins Court would be a target anyway, and I haven’t the strength of will to argue with Gabrielle. What about your place?”
“I gave it up when I left for the front,” said Alessio as they reached the stairs.
Yvon frowned. “You sure you can take these on right now? You haven’t used those muscles in a while—and some of them you haven’t had for a while.” Alessio didn’t seem to be tiring at all, but Yvon was. The three flights of stairs he could run up and down—two or three steps at a time, if there was a code—seemed unusually long at the moment, and he was breathing harder than he ought to have been.
Alessio nodded. “I’ll be all right. I want to move as much as I can, get used to things again.”
Yvon laughed; that was a good thing to hear, and then he sighed, because this was embarrassing. “All right. Good. Well…maybe you should slow down a little for me. Miraculous recovery or not, this time yesterday I couldn’t swallow porridge.” His cheeks were hot and he was sure they were red.
Alessio laughed, but he ducked his head contritely. “Sorry.”
Yvon shook his head. “It’s good to see you moving around,” he said, and tried not to lean too hard on the banister.
“It’s good to be moving, it really, really is,” Alessio said with feeling.
“I could watch you all day,” said Yvon, and paused on the landing to do just that, leaning against the banister with his cloak draped over his arm.
Alessio smiled at him flirtatiously from the next landing down. “Because you love me.”
“Madly,” said Yvon, and hauled himself up, smoothing his hair back and throwing his cloak on over his shoulders.
Alessio watched him for a moment, rubbing his own thigh, getting used to the sensation of movement again. “It’s mutual.”
“You scared the shite out of me this morning,” said Yvon, catching up to him. “No flying until we get home,” he said in an undertone, oddly self-conscious despite the knowledge that anyone who might be listening would assume that he meant they’d be flying on broomsticks.
“I scared the shite out of myself,” Alessio admitted. “And no, no flying. I just…don’t really understand how it all works.”
“I think I do,” said Yvon, frowning. “We’ll work that all out later.” They had reached the front desk; he recognised the journeyman sitting behind it. “Miss Samantha Lovegood,” he said with a smile. She’d been Susie’s best friend in school, and she’d been one of the bride’s maids at the wedding they’d missed. “Soon to be Mrs Mulciber, isn’t it?”
The girl giggled a little, but nodded. “Dr Malfoy,” she said lightly. “You’ll have to wait a moment for Magister Yang,” she said. “I’m afraid you don’t have admitting or discharge privileges while you’re on medical leave. And I certainly don’t.”
Yvon sighed theatrically. “Very well,” he said, with a much put-upon air, and held out his arm to Alessio, who took it.
“It’s all right,” said Rosalind Clutterbuck, and winked at Yvon. “I have privileges.”
“Thanks,” said Alessio.
“Oh, God,” said Yvon. Alessio didn’t know her. “What’ll I owe you for this?”
Rosalind shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll think of something when the time comes. Anyhow, Yang’s locked up with that patient of Allison’s, and I know you two lovebirds want to get out of here. And Wilkes told me he’s fine,” she said, glancing at Alessio. “Wilkes’ word is good enough for me.”
“Bilius?” Yvon sighed.
“Ah, you know him,” said Rosalind, nodding as though this had not surprised her at all. “Is there some reason Dr van Rensselaer hasn’t let us in on this one?”
“Probably because we know the patient,” said Yvon with a guilty shrug. “Look, I’d stay and consult, but—”
“But?” Rosalind raised one eyebrow.
Alessio made a small, irritated noise, and Yvon glanced back at him. “I did say, but,” he repeated, and then, to Rosalind, “You know perfectly well what Maddie would do if I tried, even if we didn’t want very much to be alone, as you observed just minutes ago.”
Rosalind laughed. “So I did,” she said. “Go on. Get out of here.”
alessio, clutterbuck, voci_umbrarum (Samantha Lovegood, Kitty Turpin) and artisson