InsaneJournal

It had been twenty three hours and seventeen minutes since the Auror had taken Gideon away. Afterwards, the hits had ransacked the cottage, claiming to be "searching" for anything suspicious. The twins had come by later with lunch and helped set the place to rights. Of course, for the last six hours, Bilius had been pacing the main living area, much to the ire of sheepdogs, cats, and pygmy puffs alike. He knew it could be hours yet. After all, when did the twenty hours start? When they arrested him? When they processed him at that Ministry? Bilius didn't know. He didn't know what they could do to Gideon, either legally or illegally. The worry ate at him. He hadn't eaten much since Friday, only pushing at the food that the twins had brought.

Finally, he heard the wards trip, and rushed towards the door, flinging it open. There were shadows under his eyes yet again and his hair looked a though there may be a stray pygmy puff or two in it. "Gideon!" he exclaimed in relief, flinging his arms around the other man.

As if Bulstrode had known she had wrung from him the last dregs of information with which he would reluctantly part, the last hours of Gideon's incarceration were spent back in his holding cell until, finally, two sour faces Aurors came for him, returned him his wand and journal, and he was grudgingly released. The unadulterated morning sun caused him to squint when he had emerged from the Ministry's depths. London's morning rush hour was only just starting to stir, disconcertingly filled with the bright flame of potential. People passed him on the street on their way to careers, friends, and opportunities. He could have been Van Wrinkle, rising from slumber to discover an entire lifetime had passed.

But he had a home to return to as well, and he wasted no more time in Apparating back, feeling the caress of wards like a breath of greeting (different now, bruised and fragmented, having been ripped apart with little care and only hastily woven back to a semblance of protection), the cold, verdant world of Yorkshire materialised around him and he was just as soon enveloped by a wild haired ginger.

Whether it was the fresh air, the light, the comforting presence of the man he loved or some combination thereof, Gideon felt the heavy shackles of exhaustion and forced exposure immediately fall away. He circled his arms around Bilius and clung to him just as tightly. “I’m alright. It’s okay,” he said against Bilius’s shoulder.

"Have you slept? Eaten? Did they hurt you? Are you alright?" Bilius pulled back, cupping Gideon's face in his hands. His wild eyes were filled with concern as he studied GIdeon, searching for signs of something, anything, that would tell him what had transpired in the past twenty-four hours. "Gideon…"

His hand fell over Bilius’s, calming, turning his head to briefly press a kiss to his palm. “While they weren’t four-star accommodations, I’ve had worse,” he dryly offered, taking a moment to study the other man in turn: the dark circles, the deepened line of exhaustion. He had told Bilius to stay and rest, but it appeared Bilius had hardly taken heed of his words. “If I hadn’t just come back from it, I’d have said you were the one taken in.”

"The twins came by to help put the place to rights," Bilius said, closing his eyes at the kiss before pulling Gideon in for a kiss. This one was hungry and desperate, Bilius needing to reassure himself that Gideon was alive, and safe, and home. "They left food. You should eat." Bilius slid a hand down Gideon's chest, still as strong and solid as he remembered before grabbing Gideon's hand and dragging him towards the kitchen. He poured two glasses of whiskey, setting once in front of Gideon before getting a plate of sandwiches the boys had left.

There was an air of slight bemusement as Gideon took in the unpredictably reassembled home, all traces of the Aurors’ incursion erased. The twins -- he’d have to find some way to repay them (though perhaps with the mass number of pygmy puffs, this was long overdue), though he couldn’t quite scratch away the itch of having had them bear witness to the more humiliating aspects of his life.

Drink and sustenance placed before him (he huffed out a tired laugh at the glass of whiskey, which only Bilius would think was suitable for 7am), he still caught hold of Bilius’s hand before the man had the chance to move away again, wordlessly inviting him to sit beside him. “Let me guess, they brought in other Order members.”

Bilius sat, one hand intertwined with Gideon's while the other wrapped around the glass of whiskey. "Those who were in Azkaban, it seems. None of the others. They got Fabian too, naturally." His voice was soft, not wanting to think of the time Fabian and Gideon spent in Azkaban, or the possibility of them going back there.

"What happened? What did they want?"

He nodded, suspicions confirmed. Despite the hour, and his altogether too recent unpleasantries with alcohol, the glass of amber liquid suddenly became appealing, if anything, to burn the taste and scent of a dusty cell from his senses. He picked it up and swirled its contents, studying the glint of sun caramelise the colour into a golden hue. “Mostly casting feelers about Lady Noir and Lestrange’s death,” he said, raising his eyes to Bilius’s for a moment before concluding his statement with a small shrug. “The usual. Anything that smacks of subnational activity, we’re usually the first to be called in.”

"Sounds so strange, 'subnational activity' as though you were digging a tunnel to China or something," Bilius said with a wry chuckle, whiskey momentarily forgotten as he studied Gideon. Bilius squeezed Gideon's hand. "But you know nothing. You're not even in the bloody Order anymore."

“That’s what we used to call them, back in my day. Still do, I guess.” He’d had to perfect his straight face whenever he had bandied the term about with his fellow Aurors, had to learn how to talk about persons who had essentially been himself in dispassionate, withering observations. It had been an interesting exercise, to say the least -- and ultimately it had damned him in the end, for he could not argue he hadn’t known exactly what he had been doing to the letter of the law. “If it means sparing you, I’d gladly let them assume differently. There are no secrets I can betray, even under threat.”

"Gideon…" Bilius said quietly, his voice soft and pleading. He didn't want to start this, each of them sacrificing themselves for the other. "You know all of mine. But I won't have you sacrificing yourself just for me. I couldn't bear if anything were to happen to you."

Bilius remembered the whiskey then, taking a long, slow, sip before setting the glass down and running a hand over his hair, trying to put some order to it. "I don't like it. And I know you don't like me being in the Order, I just.. I was ready to tear down the walls of the Ministry.."

“This is...this is the life we live now, Bilius,” Gideon said quietly, finally bringing his own glass to his lips. “I may not want the Order anymore, but I still want you, and that means protecting those secrets at all costs -- especially when I can’t always be there to protect you, not when the Order will ask you to do things I can’t know about.” The thought still made him uneasy, worse for how inevitable he knew it to be. “We’re hopeless, us Gryffindors, aren’t we?”

"You could betray the entire Order, Gideon, you know who served, why shouldn't you know it's current secrets as well as its past ones? I won't have you wasting away, not knowing where I am or what I'm doing. And maybe that's not how this is supposed to go, but you lost years of your life keeping their secrets and I trust you with all of mine." Hook, line, and sinker, he was Gideon's.

“I can’t know -- I don’t -- I told Bulstrode that I could not afford to care about a murdered child,” he admitted, the words clipped off as if to limit their shame. “If I knew what you were going out into...I don’t know if I could let you out of my sight.”

"But that was a lie. You care. I know you care." You have to care. He bit his lip. "You could come back. Come with me on things." His fingers stroked Gideon's arms, wistful, though he was fairly certain he knew what the answer would be. "Then you wouldn't have to worry, but you would be there."

He shook his head and drained the glass, letting the liquid warm him and fortify him. "The thing is, I don't know if it was." He couldn't look at Bilius, didn't want to see whatever disappointment or horror was on his face, or worse still, denial. "I'd be a worse Order member. I would always put you above the mission."

"And what? You don't think Frank and Alice do that? Or any of the others?" Bilius sighed and got to his feet, pacing the worn kitchen floor. "Then what? We keep going like this? I go spare everytime they drag you in and you ready to attack anytime something happens to me? We can't live like that, Gideon!"

“What other choice do we have?” Gideon asked desperately, watching Bilius agitated movements helplessly. “This is what being in the Order means, Bilius. This is what I didn’t--” He broke off, pinching the bridge of his nose, no longer able to summon an appetite to consume the meal before him.

"Standing here and doing nothing while they cart my lover away? Is that what it means? Then the hell with it, because you are more important to me than the secrecy of any mission. Yes, I care about murdered children even though it makes me sick, but I'm better with a quill than a wand, anyways, just look at me!" A wave of his hand indicated the bandages still peeking through the rumpled shirt he was wearing. "I don't want to run, but I also don't want to spend my nights pacing a hole in the floor wondering where you are."

Pushing away from the table, Gideon stood and gently took Bilius’s hands within his own, peering down into his face intently. “What are you saying?”

"I don't know…" Bilius looked up at Gideon, exhaustion written on both their faces. "I don't know, love…"

He slipped his arms around Bilius and coaxed him closer, first laying a kiss to his forehead, his temple, and then slotting his lips against Bilius’s, benediction and affirmation. “We could talk ourselves in circles. We’re both tired and worse for wear and it’s over for now. It’s over. Can we only just...go to bed?”

Bilius knew it wasn't over, not for real. Not for any length of time. He let out a slow breath, resting his head against Gideon's shoulder as he wrapped his arms around him loosely. He opened his mouth, started to say something and then shut it again, closing his eyes. "I suppose… bed would be good…"

“I never thought, in twenty four hours, I could miss another so much,” he said, cheek pressed to Bilius’s hair. “I missed your body pressed against mine, your breath against my skin. This is all I’ve wanted to do since coming home.” They had, in some ways, been very lucky so far. The length of time in which they could simply exist in each other’s spaces to nurture this new love had been far longer and more extensive than many others got to have, even if it came about through terrible means. For a moment, a long, endless moment, it had only been them, and now the world was beginning to seep back in with its impossible choices and hardships. He only sought to keep it away for one day more.