InsaneJournal

It was strange, the sensation of floating and disembodiment. It was even stranger to feel the heaviness of his body. Bilius could hear vague noises, voice perhaps, but nothing that made sense. There was the notion that something was off. He remembered a pub, then an alley, and blood. "Gid.." he tried to say, his voice hoarse. He groaned as he shifted on the bed. Not his bed. Where were the girls? "Wen-? Na-?" He patted his hands.. his bandaged hands and slowly opened his eyes.

The light in the room on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's was soft, not harsh, but it had that vaguely sterile feeling. Bilius swallowed hard, wincing at the pain as he struggled to sit up, falling back against the pillows at the pain that he felt. Not sharp, stabbing pain that he remembered, but a dull, persistent heaviness. His gaze focused on a form in the room. "Gid…?" he asked, his voice thin and disused, but tinged with hope.

“Hullo Mr Weasley,” came a calm, clear voice. “It’s good to see you awake. My name is Healer Jones, and you are in the Spell Damage ward at St Mungo’s Hospital.” Hestia came forward, parchment and quill in hand as she circumspectly jotted down notes. “You’ve been unconscious for approximately 48 hours -- medically induced, of course. Basilisk venom is nasty business, though growing back that much bone is not all too pleasant either. You’re very lucky to be alive, and to have so much family concerned about your well-being. That one over there has refused to leave your room.” A careful nod to the corner revealed the rather ungainly sight of Gideon half-sprawled, half-folded up in a small hospital chair, sound asleep, though the strained lines of his face revealed it was mostly from sheer exhaustion.

There were too many words and Bilius' eyes started to glaze over as he grimaced and settled into the pillows. "When…" He coughed, his voice still incredibly hoarse. "When can I go home?"

“Well,” Hestia said, tucking the quill back into the pocket of her Healer’s robes and giving Bilius the weight of her full regard. It would be a miracle if the injured man had tracked even half of what she had said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I hope there will be someone there to help you with your aftercare. Judging by the sizable party we managed to convince to go home earlier, I should think you will be in good hands. Not the least of which...well.” With a nod to tie the assertion off neatly and a gaze that was all too knowing, Hestia settled Bilius’s records down at the end of his bed. “Get some rest, Mr Weasley.”

It was the closing of the door behind her that jolted Gideon awake, an involuntary hiss produced after as all the cramps and aches in his body made themselves known to him at once.

"I need to go home," Bilius protested to the closed door. He didn't want to be here a minute longer than he needed to. Every time he closed his eyes, he remembered his last visit here. He took a deep breath and winced, slightly, still sore as he tried to take it all in. His dominant left hand was was splinted and bandaged, his right in a smaller bandage. His chest and stomach was also covered in bandages. At the hiss, he turned his head to the side and looked hopefully towards the sprawling form.

"You'd be more comfortable in a bed."

At the sound of Bilius’s hoarse, weak voice, the last vestiges of uneasy sleep were washed away and replace with an alert awareness. “Bilius.” Minor aches and the complaints of age were pushed to the background as Gideon stood too quickly, managed to recover quickly from his slight stumble and approach the sole bed bearing its occupant.

Bilius had never been a particularly large man. What he lacked in physicality, he more than made up for in personality, but when he was drained of health, vigour and a significant amount of blood, his presence only seemed to further diminish. The dressings swathing his body hid terrible traumas. Even the brief sight of dark blood he had seen in the shadows would not be something he would ever forget, undoubtedly joining the parade of haunting images he frequently revisited in his dreams.

Gideon parted his lips, but remained paralysed in what to say next that would bear any sort of meaning. “Apparently in hospital, they only reserve beds for patients.”

"Bollocks," Bilius said, shifting to the side to make room for Gideon and holding out a hand for Gideon to join him on the bed. Gideon was here. He hadn't left. And if what the healer said was true, he'd been here the entire time. There was a different sort of pain blossoming in Bilius' chest. Guilt at putting him through this. "C'mere… sorry… I.. didn't mean…"

After a moment of visible hesitation, Gideon sat down on edge of the bed but remained sitting up, gazing at Bilius in what he feared was too many raw emotions bared. He clenched his jaw and settled his gaze somewhere over Bilius’s shoulder, the one uncovered by bandages, pale and lightly freckled. “Please tell me what happened.”

Bilius shrank back, the emotions nearly humming in the air. He missed his dogs then, wanting something to hug, or something to drink. But he had a feeling Gideon wasn't carrying a flask and that the healer wouldn't be too keen on getting him one. He rubbed a bandaged hand over his face. "I was drunk." That much was true. And easy enough to admit. He'd been drunk much of the past week. It hurt just thinking of what had happened in the alley and he shuddered, a hand instinctively reaching out towards Gideon, fingers brushing against Gideon's trousers, too scared to actually reach for his hand.

"I.. I had a piece. I wrote a piece - while drunk, so it's probably shite - it was in my pocket.. I was going to put it in The Prophet. Sneak in and get it on the front page. Shift a few sheets. I was in the alley behind the building when she showed up.. I- I'm not a good fighter. I tried. I tried not to run, I tried to be brave, Gid, I tried. But I couldn't.. and I screamed. I'm sorry.."

“Who?” Gideon bit out, as if the very question hurt to be asked. As if asking even mattered -- it was one of them, he knew, gender narrowing it down significantly, but still, them. He stared at Bilius’s searching hand, fingers twitching as if grasping for an invisible lifeline. For a moment, he only stared. Swallowed back the ball of dread beading in his gut, only to feel it well up in his throat, until finally, his fingers interlaced with Bilius’s tightly, and he brought his other hand over to cover them both. “Why. Why would you do this?”

"I don't know. I.. she called me Weasel, but that means nothing. There's plenty of purists who consider us blood traitors." His fingers tightened with Gideon's as his voice caught in his throat. "I write. Or I used to. I've been trying to write something on this since before Christmas, but it's all been rubbish. Maybe I wasn't thinking because I was drunk, maybe it was still shite, I don't know, but I finally got the balls to try and get it printed. I wasn't going to just plaster some trees with my piece."

“Writing retreat.” The words were issued like an accusation, tinged in bitterness, cut off sharply. “Is this what you usually do, on your annual writing retreat?”

"Writing retreat sounds better than bender," he mumbled, weariness filling his words as he curled in on himself, eyes focused on the ceiling and not on Gideon. "No one likes to hear that you're going to drink yourself stupid for a week every year. This year was apparently stupider than most." The words were delivered without comment. Despite the two days of forced rest, Bilius didn't have the energy for this. "Although I didn't wake up broke in a foreign country in March, which is also good." It was a weak attempt at humour, but if he didn't try, well, he didn't want to think about what he might do.

His suddenly empty hands touched the starched white sheets of the bed. The physical retreat seemed to only expand the distance between them, though Bilius had barely moved an inch away. “You are...the least political person I know. Even...even back then. You never wanted to be directly involved in this fight. Why this year would you choose to write your screed against purists?”

Bilius didn't want to do this. He certainly didn't want to do this now. All he wanted was Gideon's arms around him and the promise that things would be okay - even if it was a lie. He wanted a reason not get the first portkey to Brazil and leave this all behind again. He ran a shaky bandaged hand over his face and forced himself to take slow breaths and not to panic. He didn't need to be scared of Gideon. "I- I was a coward back then." The words were quiet and strained and he couldn't bring himself to look at Gideon. "And it's not just the attack that haunts me, but what I did. I lived because I ran. And that-" makes me a horrible human being. Even now, he still couldn't bring himself to say those words aloud.

"I can be brave when I write. Except with the murders, I couldn't. I couldn't put words to paper because I was too scared. But someone needs to write from the other side. I don't know if what I wrote was any good. Maybe it was because I was that drunk that I wasn't scared. Drunken courage or some shite. But people are dying again and-" Bilius' voice caught in his throat and it was a few moments before he found it again. "I can't stand by and lose you. Not without there being a reason. Not without trying. I won't. I won't let them take you the way they took Liam from me. This time I'll do the right thing. I won't be a damned pussy footed coward. Because I can't lose you, Gideon… not now."

“Lose me? And do you think I want to lose you? To this? Bilius, look what almost happened to you!” His tone, birthed in a mixture of exasperation and disbelief, steadily rose to a desperate kind of insistence. The last notes of it still rung in his ears, and he ran a hand over his mouth and looked away. Somewhere neutral. Had to wait until the anger had abated. “Please. Please promise me this won’t happen again. Please. This cannot happen again.”

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Bilius asked, voice soft and pleading, though there was a note of resignation in it. "I get attacked for my last name alone on the journals, people are getting killed in their homes. Even if I stopped writing, if I quit the- I wouldn't be able to promise that. I didn't go looking for a fight, Gideon. I wasn't much of a fight. I.. I was just a plaything for her."

His short huff of laughter held a bitter edge. “Did you really think illegally breaking into the Prophet to make sure an anti-purist screed ran on the front page wouldn’t draw their ire? Gods...did Fabian put you up to this?” He’ll have a piece of my mind. His actions are coming home to roost.

"Fabian?" Bilius asked, raising an eyebrow. "No, Fabian thinks I'm in Brazil getting drunk on cachaça. This has nothing to do with the-" Bilius bit his lip, not sure how safe it was to talk about such things here, even if Gideon did know about the Order.

“Of which you are now a part,” Gideon said quietly. Not a question.

Bilius wanted to reach out, to reassure him, but he couldn't. Not when he was like this. All he could do was nod and whisper, "I'm sorry. I know you hate it. But it happened right as you and I- I meant to tell you, since you already knew, but I didn't want to lose you over it."

“I…” He took a breath, shuddered it out, shaky. “I don’t know if I can do this again,” he admitted. “It might not have happened this time, Bilius. But what happens the next time? And if not then, the time after that? You see, I’ve done this. I’ve done this before. And I…” There were many faces he could see in that hospital bed instead of Bilius’s. Sometimes, they were lucky -- they could be patched up in someone’s home. By then, they had all gained enough field medical experience to do competent patch-up jobs. Then it got harder. More A&E visits, more long nights, more waiting, unsure if the last time he would have seen his friends alive was bleeding out in his arms. There was the hit he took from the bank break-in, serious enough to go to hospital, but they couldn’t because of the timing. He’d sweated it out in the back room of some dingy muggle pub and nearly died of infection anyway.

The only thing worse than waiting in hospital to hear the fate of friends and loved ones was already knowing what happened and no longer being required to wait at all.

“It just happens again. I am helpless to stop it. It just keeps happening again.”

Bilius struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain that spread throughout his body as he wrapped his arms around Gideon, biting his lip as he pressed his head against Gideon's shoulder. "It's going to happen even if we try to stay out of it. But if you want run…" Bilius swallowed hard. "If you want, say the word and we can just go off to Brazil.. or Greece…"

So you can continue to hate yourself. And then, perhaps in time, grow to hate him too. He gently turned towards Bilus, cupping his cheek, perhaps the only part of him left uninjured, and instead of saying anything at all, kissed him instead, slight medicinal taste and scent upon his tongue.

Bilius closed his eyes, responding to the kiss with a soft whimper before falling back upon the pillows, trying to pull Gideon with him. He brushed his fingertips over Gideon's lips. "I think I need some whiskey to rinse my mouth."

This time, Gideon let himself be pulled, drawing up his legs onto the bed, curling up against Bilius without disturbing existing injuries as much as the scant room on the bed would allow. “I don’t think Healers would appreciate alcohol mixed with their potions,” he said against Bilius fingers, bringing up a hand to curl over Bilius’s knuckles. “It’s okay. I like your mouth.”

"I don't bloody well care," Bilius retorted, a bit more sharply than intended as he pressed against Gideon despite the pain. "I like your mouth too. But I like it more at home. Can't you get me out of here?"

“With all my authority as an ex-convict?” He arched a brow, sliding a foot between Bilius’s ankles, winding all the parts of himself around those parts of Bilius that he could safely touch.

"You can break into buildings to steal a cat, I'm sure you sneak me out of a hospital," he said, sucking on the tip of Gideon's finger. "Please," he begged, the tone earnest, not playful. "I can't stay here…"

And underneath the earnestness, genuine plea. A sharp glint of desperation. “If it’s too soon, I don’t want to hurt you more than you have been.”

Bilius curled against Gideon, closing his eyes, resignation evident in the way his body slumped. "How much did they tell you?" he asked in a whisper.

“The basilisk venom. The shattered bones. There was...I couldn’t see, at the time, it was dark, there was so much…” And he didn’t want to remember that much, now that he could reflect upon it without the urgency to ruthlessly suppress the horror. Instead, he drew his arm over Bilius’s shoulders, around his neck, as if he could further protect him. “They would have alerted the DMLE. They’ll want to question you. I would get you out, before that happened.”

Bilius shuddered at the memory. "She wanted to send a message… 'muggle lover'… leave me as a warning." He motioned to the bandages on his chest. "At least it's not swimsuit season," he teased. "I don't want to talk to them. I just want to go home and forget it."

You won’t be able to. But, they both knew that. His gaze slid to the bandages. Injuries forged with magical means would scar in a way a simple cut would not. They would exist alongside their predecessors, reminders of horrible nights. “Then you won’t,” he could promise that, at least, even as his failure and ineptitude to protect Bilius from further hurt would serve as his reminder.

"Enough with the brooding, Gideon," Bilius said, his eyes drooping with exhaustion. He could relax now, knowing Gideon was here and would protect him. "I'm alright. We'll be alright."

How he desperately wanted to believe it, there, in that moment, so much so he chose to solely focus on the fan of red-gold eyelashes, on the warm press of Bilius’s solid body next to his, on the ease with which he could do this, was allowed. The dark dread skirted the edges, unacknowledged. He pressed a kiss to Bilius’s temple, let his own heavy lids close against the brightness of the day. “We will be...so happy.”