closed RP/sock, backdated to Dec. 24: the Macaulay twins, then Charles and Francis

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles had started smoking again. He couldn't remember now why he'd even tried to quit. Something to do with clean living, something to do with health, toxins, God knew what. Something to do with impressing his sister, because she'd quit sometime before he came to Hogwarts, but along came Henry and at some point she'd picked up the habit again, so why should Charles have to go without?

"Give me one of those," he said to her, idly, no particular force behind the words, as she lit herself one of Henry's cigarettes.

"All right." She handed one over, casually, but she didn't light his. He had to do that himself.

It was odd, to be in their room invited -- Henry's and Camilla's room. It wasn't easy to be there, honestly, knowing that was the bed they slept in, that was Henry's Pali grammar on his sister's nightstand. Charles almost missed the stupid tent village, because at least everyone all had living-rooms there. Yet part of him liked being here, because it was Camilla's room, and he was the fox in the henhouse. Henry couldn't do a damn thing about it, by Henry's own doing. Caesar's wife was above reproach, as the old saying went.

They were alone today. Usually they had Susan or someone around. Not a chaperone, they didn't need one (thank you, Henry), but a buffer of sorts. So this was a little different than usual, and a lot more like the way things used to be a long time ago. Camilla seemed in high spirits, humming "Greensleeves" almost under her breath, scribbling little notes inside cards, writing inside books. Charles was helping her wrap presents.

Why wasn't Henry the one helping her wrap presents that were, presumably, meant to be from him as well as from his wife? Well, could anyone imagine Henry sitting on the floor amid stray snippets of ribbon, with a big roll of bright paper and a rapidly diminishing supply of Spell-o-tape? No, he was in the library, doing scholarly things, where he could stay as far as Charles was concerned. It's like we're playing house, and Henry's the dad, and he's off at work, Charles thought, unsticking a piece of tape that had doubled back on itself. Ruefully he recalled something he'd said to Camilla at his own Sorting: We're not supposed to stay the same people we were in college! We're supposed. To grow. Up. Move on. You may not like how I've gone about it, but that's what I've done. Yet here he was, sitting on the floor like a child, playing nice.

Hogwarts had sucked him back into everything. And, for better or worse, he liked it.

Anyway he wasn't trapped. He could leave. He could always do that. Go back to Corpus Christi or Galveston and his dishwashing job ... yeah, that really appealed. He remembered being twenty-one, angry, moving out of Nana's house to live in town, leaving the family behind. Embarking on a drunkard's odyssey that would eventually lead him beyond the reach of his past, or so he'd hoped --

His past was making a little distressed sound. He almost jumped up; as it was, he got to his knees, shoving the wrapping-paper roll aside. "What's wrong, honey?"

"I got ash on Richard's book," said Camilla, narrowing her eyes at the offending page as she tried to brush at it with a handkerchief. She'd crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray, he saw, as if to punish it.

"Did you burn a hole in it?"

"No. But I made a smudge."

"Well, then just leave it be. I'll get the marks off with an eraser or something. Work on something else."

"I already wrote the inscription. I was just leaving it open to let the ink dry."

"There ought to be a spell to dry ink," Charles thought aloud. "You know, some kind of air-warming charm that could act like a hair dryer."

"There probably is but I don't want to waste magic on it anyway."

That made him laugh a little. "Are you storing up all your magic? Like a camel, you know, storing water?"

And just like that, he got her to laugh too. "Yes. I'm a camel. A magic camel. How did you know?"

"I am your twin brother. Takes one to know one."

It was a stupid joke. They laughed anyway, because they liked one another's laughter. Her eyes were bright and clear, not shying away from him at all. This was how things were supposed to be.

Charles was so very, very close to being happy.

Therefore it followed as night follows day that Camilla had to shatter the moment. “I wish Henry’s present could have been delivered in time,” she said, out of nowhere. Apparently her mind had gone off ranging on its own, reeling through holiday planning and arrangements and lists of who knew what, when Charles thought she was here with him. Camilla had a way of doing that, of seeming immediate and real yet being somewhere far away all along. And of course she had to say something about Henry, when Charles had just about been to the point where he could happily pretend Henry was still dead.

“Actually,” said Charles, “I’ve been sort of having a similar problem. There’s no way I can get something here in time, but I’d like to find a present for Susan, and I’m not even sure what yet.”

He watched her eyes for the flash he hoped would come. Oh, yes, there it was.

All she said was, “Well, Henry and I got her something -- I got her something from us, that is. We could put your name on it too.”

“That’s very nice of you to offer, but I’d like it to be something a little more special,” Charles demurred. “Not anything she wouldn’t feel she could accept, of course.”

“I wouldn’t know, then,” Camilla said, more curtly than she’d probably intended.

Charles pushed the envelope. “Her favorite color’s black, of course, but I think white would suit her terribly well, don’t you?”

“Everyone looks better in white than they think they will,” Camilla answered, clearly trying to sidestep. “I don’t know, you could get her some mittens or something. Speaking of which --” She got out of her seat and went to rummage under the bed. Producing a flat box, the kind department stores box shirts in, she offered it to Charles. “Merry Christmas.”

“It’s only Christmas Eve.”

She held out the ashtray so he could get rid of the cigarette and have both hands free. “Well, I can’t very well ask you to wrap your own present, can I? So you’ll just have to have it now. I think it’s more fun than waiting.”

He hoped she meant any number of things by this -- that she wanted him to open it while it was just the two of them, without Henry there; that it was more special that way. Ceremoniously he unlidded the box and unveiled things from their shroud of tissue paper: a soft knit winter cap, a pair of leather gloves in a matching gray. And a little envelope. Charles raised an eyebrow and held up the envelope, unopened. “Sorry, didn’t mean to open the card last.”

“No, open it,” said Camilla, laughing a little.

Not a card, but a photograph. It was the twins together, eight years old, at Christmas. Uncle Hilary stood in the background doing something to some lights on a tree. Charles had a missing front tooth. Camilla was wearing a velvet dress and mary janes.

“I found it in a box of old things,” said Camilla. “There’s something else in there too, don’t throw it out.”

There was -- inside the envelope, a slip of paper Charles’s fingers had missed.

“I think you wrote too many zeroes on this check, honey,” he said.

“No, I didn’t,” said Camilla, looking away. And then he knew what she was doing, or thought he knew. She didn’t want him to have to ask Henry for money. Abruptly he became irritated -- hadn’t he fended for himself for years, cut off from the family? (And there was always Francis …)

He wasn’t so irritated that he wouldn’t take the money, though. “Well, thanks,” he said.

There was an awkward silence. There shouldn’t be silences like that between them.

“I remember when that picture was taken,” said Camilla. “Those shoes were too tight, and I didn’t want to wear them, and I kept wanting to wear my slippers instead.”

“But you danced anyway,” Charles remembered. They’d already started to learn, by then, though just basic steps.

“Yes. I wanted to. And you kept saying I didn’t have to, but then when I’d sit down you wanted me to get up again.”

“Well, who else was I going to dance with? No one else was the right height.”

“And then we stole the eggnog we weren’t supposed to have.”

“Grown-up eggnog,” said Charles. His laughter cut short when he remembered he couldn’t have grown-up eggnog these days either.

“It tasted so funny,” said Camilla over that silence -- ignoring it or sparing him, hard to tell -- “and I spit it out at first. But then I drank the rest anyway because that was the grown-up thing to do. Gosh, it seems like so long ago. We’re getting old, you know. How did that happen?”

“We’re not old. You just feel old because you’re doing too much and you’re not getting enough sleep.” Fuck. He wished he hadn’t said it, even as the words came out of his mouth, because he hadn’t been thinking about what it could sound like, and now there was the elephant in the room again. Like he needed to think about who she was sleeping with and how much of that time proportionally was devoted to sleeping.

“I’m not doing too much, and anyway you’re helping out, aren’t you?”

“I try,” he said quietly. “As much as you’ll let me.” And now he wasn’t talking about wrapping presents, and he couldn’t stop looking at her, her pale precious face a softer version of his own, and Camilla looked away again.

“Speaking of helping out, do you think you could take Francis his presents? It’s too much to give to an owl.”

“Right now?” But he knew she did mean right now. She needed him to leave. He understood. It went against the grain for him to go along with it; he had to fight his instinct, the instinct that said she wants you to leave because you're getting too close, so you need to stay. He had to think long-range.

“If you could? There’s nothing else to wrap except Richard’s book, and honestly I think I can handle that myself.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, already getting up, collecting his box, tucking the envelope with its contents carefully inside beside the hat and gloves.

“Give François my love,” Camilla instructed him, piling the boxes tagged Francis atop the white box Charles already held. She had to lean over the stack of boxes, then, to kiss his cheek. It kept a certain distance between them.

He considered distance, then, as he walked alone to Hufflepuff dorm, whistling “Greensleeves” without thinking because she’d been humming it. Distance in space, distance in time, the way things could look so close and feel so far away.

His arms full, he had to knock at Francis's door by kicking it lightly. It was late enough in the afternoon that Francis really ought to be awake.

Comments

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Francis was not only awake, but engaged in Christmas activities of his own. Specifically, he'd realized that it was probably about time he sucked it up and wrote a letter home to his wife, full of longing and sighs of loneliness and all that trash. If he made it good enough, maybe it would keep her happy for another few months, and that would be a few more months that he didn't have to think of her.

My darling Priscilla, he began.

Christmas is in the air, and snow is on the ground, but all I can think of is the winter in my heart and how dreadful, how dreary everything here is without you. Darling, I miss you so terribly that I simply ache when I think of you. I look into my mirror and think about your...

This was about where he got stuck. He couldn't think of a single nice thing to say about her. The letter was already horribly tacky as it was, and completely fictional (except for the part about aching when he thought of her, anyway), but he just didn't know how to continue.

The knock at the door was welcome. "Oh, thank God," he muttered to himself, and went to open it. His face went slack when he saw who was at the door, his brows rising towards his hairline. "Charles? Hi. Oh-- you've got--" He blinked sharply, spotting the boxes, and quickly stepped back to hold the door open. "Come in, come in."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"Beware Greeks bearing gifts," said Charles, brushing past Francis and carrying his freight into the little dorm room. "Camilla sends her love. Apparently I'm her new owl. Or house-elf, or something. Anyway these are for you. Except the one that isn't wrapped. I came straight here so I haven't had the chance to drop it off. Oh, I think they're supposed to be from Henry too," he added, with a slight eyeroll. "Can I set them down someplace?"

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Francis was distracted from his other Christmas gifts by the one that was standing right in front of him, but he put on a smile. "Just put them on the--" He hesitated, glanced around. "Well, here," he said after a pause, pushing his writing things and the letter aside to make room on his desk. "That can wait till later, I suppose."

Just to be helpful, or as helpful as he ever was, he took the top box from Charles and set it down. There, that was his contribution. "I'll thank them later."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"Good luck with that." Charles set down the other boxes beside the first, not atop it, because the top one had been the smallest. "You'll have to find Henry first. And getting Camilla's attention isn't hard but try keeping it long enough for a decent conversation." Why, yes, Charles was a little out of sorts. "I'm not going to run around the rest of the school for her, either," he decided. "She can just bring Richard his present herself, when she's done, or get Henry to do it. That'd be something to see, wouldn't it?"

With unconscious presumption -- never shy about making himself at home, if the home belonged to Francis -- Charles sat on the desk itself next to the boxes, picking up Francis's letter-in-progress so as not to sit on it. "Doing some homework?" Of course he didn't have the slightest compunction about reading something that wasn't his, though he might have shown a little restraint had he realized ahead of time what the 'homework' actually was.

"Oh," he said, after a pause. For an awful moment it seemed Charles might make some light remark, something terribly careless and callous. The corner of his mouth had lifted in that wry little way the twins shared.

Instead all he said was, "You ought to put some French in it. You know, something pretty, a couple lines of Verlaine maybe. Tout suffocant et blême, quand sonne l'heure, je me souviens des jours anciens et je pleure ... (http://www.toutelapoesie.com/poemes/verlaine/poemes_saturniens/paysages_tristes/chanson_d_automne.htm) ... Something like that." His French was as good as Camilla's, not as good as Francis's own; the words had a sterile classroom accent, a little too perfect for fluency; but he seemed to feel comfortable with the language, and as he reeled off those remembered lines his pale features took on a sort of faraway look (probably envisioning the page of text in his mind, maybe thinking of a time he'd mooned over it himself), faraway and dreamy, the letter dangling carelessly from his fingers.

(( From the poem 'Chanson d'Automne' (Song of Autumn); translation can be had at Project Gutenberg (http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/gutenberg/etext05/8pvrl10h.htm), God love it. Of course Charles isn't thinking about Verlaine's affair with Rimbaud while he mentions this -- thoughtless thing that he is. Also, edited because at first I was using a different poem that I don't think works as well as this. ))

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Why, if Francis didn't know better, he'd think Charles was feeling a little bitter. But, no, of course not. What a thing to think. "Henry delivering gifts, or Camilla getting herself alone with Richard these days?" Francis asked lightly. "I think either one would be a sight."

"Can I get you a--" and it was probably better that Charles picked up the letter when he did, for Francis, foolishly, mindlessly, had been about to offer him a drink. It was what one did, after all, when one had a friend in one's quarters. And of course, the last time (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1474165.html) he'd seen Charles -- not to mention certain events (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1407716.html#cutid1) before that -- there had been drinking, so it was an honest mistake. But it was probably for the best that he was interrupted, all the same, even if it was by something he'd rather not have brought up at all.

"Oh," he murmured, adjusting his glasses. "That." He said it sheepishly, regrettably, with his eyes cast aside and his posture stiff -- he was waiting for Charles to say it, whatever it was going to be. He could tell there was going to be something, some smart-ass comment. "Well, you know how it is." Although he very much doubted Charles did, in this particular case.

When Charles spoke again, he looked up in surprise, his face clearing -- and then he let out a surprised bark of a laugh, pleasantly delighted by the poem. "My God, Charles, that's perfect. Just the sort of thing she'd..." ...fawn over without understanding, he was going to say, but something stopped him. He smiled narrowly. "...she'll love it." He strode to the table and bent, taking the letter from Charles to add the line. "I've told you about my wife, haven't I?" he asked breezily. "I can't recall."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles knew, vaguely, that at Francis' Sorting (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1346696.html?thread=68285320#t68285320) they'd discussed the new Mrs. Abernathy. It wasn't a good memory so he chose to ignore it. He guessed Francis might be doing the same, pretending he didn't remember. Anyway it had been months ago. Why, they were entirely different people now, one might go so far as to say.

"I think Camilla's mentioned it -- mentioned her, I should say. Because you didn't get caught up in that tent village thing," Charles improvised. The 'tent village thing' also constituted the only reason Charles knew for Camilla to avoid Richard's company; unlike Francis, he wasn't privy to certain indiscretions. "Is that why she wouldn't want to be alone with Richard? The tent village thing, the fake marriage? I wouldn't think he'd dare lay a finger on her." If he did, there'd be one thing Henry and Charles could agree on. Charles's jaw tightened at the mere thought of it.

He leaned a little to one side, arm braced against the desktop, to allow Francis access to the inkwell. "That ought to do the trick," he said, as his friend jotted the prescribed lines. "Women love that stuff -- most women do." Camilla would have laughed if he'd tried reciting French poetry to her, he was sure. But that son of a bitch probably reads her Callimachus by candlelight. With his flat reading voice, and everything. He probably reads her the fucking footnotes.

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Charles suppressing something he didn't feel like remembering was not exactly new, and if Francis remembered more of the conversation himself, he might have laughed again; but the truth was, he really didn't remember much of it either. It felt like ages ago, now, that he'd shown up here, a whole lifetime away, and if he hadn't exactly changed much, well, he wasn't the same person either.

"Did she? I wasn't sure." He went on writing, all but calligraphing the lines, because what was that they said? It was 90% how you looked and only 10% what you said, wasn't it? And some of the others might write that off as rubbish, but Francis, Francis knew that was right. He seemed to anticipate the clenching of Charles's jaw, though, and left off then, looking up. "Oh, of course he wouldn't," he said quickly. "He's not that type. I just meant the wedding -- she really hated that. She wrote the most desperate letters. I'm glad it got called off."

He returned to the letter. "Anything else, do you think? I want to keep her happy, of course. She's so very... important." He drummed his fingers against the desk, frowning down at the page. "She's very beautiful, of course. I could go on forever about that. Or tell her about the wedding, how much nicer ours was."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"She is," Charles agreed, quite missing the shift of pronoun meaning at first, the shift from Camilla to Priscilla as subject. I want to keep her happy, of course. She's so very ... important. She's very beautiful, of course. I could go on forever about that ...

Oh. Of course Francis couldn't be talking about Camilla. And if he were, Charles would have to do something unpleasant to him, so that was for the best. He caught himself and went on. "I mean, I'm sure it was lovely. Any wedding would have been much nicer." Never mind that Charles wasn't one to talk, given that the interlude between Hampden and Hogwarts had been for him far from champagne wishes and caviar dreams. What mattered was the principle of the thing. Camilla could have gotten married in Westminster Abbey, wearing a gown with a twenty-foot train, and it would still have been the worst travesty of a wedding ever, as far as Charles was concerned. "It was good of you to come, under the circumstances."

He wouldn't say anything about the Bunny episode at the reception ... Ugh. On the whole, it might not be such a good thing to talk about the wedding any more. Francis wasn't stupid. It wouldn't be good for him to think too closely about some things.

"It might bore her to hear about the wedding. It'd be a little embarrassing for Camilla, too, don't you think? Maybe you'd better spare them both, and just talk about, ah, something more personal." Francis's wife was beautiful? Charles pictured some society dame, someone looking a lot like Francis's mother, who was a looker in her own way but not to Charles's taste. "Whatever it is about her you miss most."

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Francis wasn't stupid, but he was easily distractable when it came to matters of marriage, and he cared about his own far more than he cared about Camilla and Henry's. Their wedding had been ludicrous and awful, but at least they had a decent marriage set out for themselves, which was more than he could say for his own sad self. "The circumstances?" Francis asked, drolly amused, but didn't push the issue any further. "Such as they were, yes." He adjusted his pince-nez and squinted at his handwriting.

"I suppose you're right," he went on, in dismayed agreement. "Well, what is it that I miss most, then." He didn't think 'his credit card' was necessarily the best answer to that question, nor the brain cells he had lost in all the time they'd spent together. He struggled for a moment. "Oh, I don't know." He laughed. "It's so hard to decide."

He reached over, suddenly, and pulled out a drawer, reaching into it and fishing out a photograph. "What do you say, Charles, do you want to help me mix up a few metaphors?" He held the photograph out to him; she had insisted he take it with him before he left the city. Priscilla Abernathy, in all her doe-eyed glory, sitting by the lake in Central Park by herself and beaming at no one. It seemed horribly apt to Francis, but at least it was a pretty picture.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

It wasn't unthinkable to Charles that Francis should be capable of attraction to a woman. Why not? Charles himself preferred women, and if Charles could on occasion be swayed to a little indiscretion with Francis someone who wasn't a woman, then surely the opposite should hold true for someone like Francis. As long as that little incident on the Chinese bridge in Bennington was never repeated (Camilla on the bridge with Francis in the moonlight, how on earth could anyone let that happen?) Charles didn't give a damn who Francis liked.

All the same, when he took the photograph from Francis, he expected this Mrs. Abernathy to resemble the only Mrs. Abernathy he'd met, the redoubtable Olivia. It made more sense than anything, really -- especially if you were Charles, with certain notions of family. Francis's mother adored her only son, after all, and for all his dramatic complaints surely Francis reciprocated.

The woman sitting by the lake in this photograph did not conform, at all, to Charles's expectations.

"... Wow." That was all he could say. Flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, Priscilla Abernathy was a fairytale princess in Talbots twill. Not built like Milly, of course -- Priscilla rounder, softer, though still fashionably slim -- all right, Charles could admit that Priscilla fit standard conventions of beauty more closely than Camilla, but that was just because people didn't have sufficiently refined taste. Camilla was like a statue, and Priscilla was like a doll.

One hell of a doll at that. "Didn't know you had it in you," said Charles lightly. "I guess you don't need help thinking of metaphors for that, do you? Unless she just sort of ... reduces you to wordlessness." Charles knew what that was like. "Um. Tell her she's very ... blonde?" Then he realized what he'd said, and started laughing -- having no idea exactly how true it really was. "Okay, I'm sorry, didn't mean it that way. Let's see ..." He summoned up solemnity. "Tell her you miss her desperately. That when you close your eyes at night, hers is the face you see. And when you wake up you look for her, and when she's not there, you want to go back to sleep so you can see her again. Tell her you'd give anything to be with her again. And that you're sorry, if you ever hurt her, you really are. That you want nothing more than to kiss her and make it all better."

He trailed off, but then, he'd been half-talking to himself, hadn't he? He'd gotten that faraway dreamy look again. It softened his seawater eyes, made him look like a boy again.

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

Francis didn't know himself why it was so terribly important that Charles approve of Priscilla. It wasn't as though he himself did, and he normally had a delightful time badmouthing her to Camilla, but for some reason this was different. He found himself craving Charles's approval, his admiration, like nicotine. Later, he would wonder if this was how poor Californian Richard felt all the time, but right now he was absorbed, and when Charles's expression changed Francis couldn't keep the smug grin from his face. "She's lovely, isn't she?" he agreed triumphantly.

Maybe this, at least, was something Charles might--what--respect him for? It was ridiculous to think of it, trying to get respect for something he loathed so deeply, puffing himself up over something that amounted to little better than hiding and lying -- which he had no moral objection to -- always do what is necessary, as Julian used to say -- but he knew it wasn't the bravest of choices or the happiest. And he was about as attracted to Priscilla as he was to a dishtowel; and yet there was a part of him still saying you see? Look what that silly old queer Francois can do.

Except that smugness and triumph were impossible to maintain when Charles started talking like that, along with pretty much any semblance of disaffectation. Francis's smile, so sharp at first, faded as Charles began to instruct him, and by the end he had given up writing altogether and remained leant forward on the table, weight on his elbows, his gaze drawn to Charles's soft young face.

The moment Charles's voice faded, though, Francis flinched. He felt instantly sick with longing, disgusted with himself for dropping his front so easily and more disgusted still for still being so unable to resist Charles's brooding magnetism; for letting himself imagine once again that Charles had been talking about him for just that moment. He glanced away and nodded shortly. "That sounds fine," he muttered. "Fine."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Sadly, Charles remained completely oblivious to everything -- to the triumph in Francis's voice, to the soft wistfulness that replaced it, to the muttering discontent that supplanted that in turn. He was lost in his own emo haze of longing.

"It's never good enough, you know," he said quietly, still gazing nowhere in particular, still dreamy and morose. "Whatever we write or say won't ever be good enough for them."

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

"Don't I know it," Francis agreed bitterly, and he certainly wasn't thinking of Priscilla now. But then he looked back up at Charles, at his lost, lonely expression, and softened. He couldn't help it -- he still felt sorry for himself, still felt angry and resentful, but Charles just looked so sad and so wonderfully, terribly broody.

Francis reached out, touching Charles's leg lightly, just barely razing with the backs of his bony fingers. "It could be all right, though," he said softly, more of a question than an answer. "Even so. Even without them." There was no doubt in his mind which them Charles meant, and so he knew his reply was useless, but it was worth a try at least.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles sighed. "I used to think so. You remember." The years after Hampden but before rehab and Charles's disappearance into the no-man's-land of white trash life. Francis's tone and touch seemed to him anything but objectionable; to Charles, it was just part of that overall soothing thing Francis did when one of them was sick or in distress. Everyone always said what a good bedside manner Francis had, didn't they? "If I could undo all that I would but I can't, so I have to make it up somehow. And the hell of it is, she lets me try, but only so far."

Charles had clearly forgotten himself to an extent not usual. Certain things might be implicitly understood among the former Hampden classmates, but they weren't talked about openly, and the nature of Charles's incestuous attachment to his sister was one of those things.

"It's like hell. To be that close and not be able to do a damn thing about it."

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

The ironies weren't going to stop tonight, apparently. Francis's mouth twisted wryly. "I know," he murmured, stroking his thigh. "I know, Charles." He did have a good bedside manner, and he was good at talking to people who were having problems, in the unusual way that only people who were constantly under stress themselves possessed, but this really had nothing to do with that. This had everything to do with Francis's own selfishness. Of course he wanted to cheer Charles up, but that wasn't for Charles, or anyway not nearly as much as Francis would like to tell himself it was.

He stood abruptly and moved around the desk, abandoning the letter and Priscilla to face Charles directly -- he was feeling, suddenly, blunt. "But you can't now, you know. That's the choice she made when she married him. You know that." He hesitated, looked down, picking a bit at the curlicued molding on the edge of the desk. "I can't help but think she did it for you, in a way."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Petting Charles that way, petting him like a restive animal, could be a risky proposition if he were sober. At the moment he wasn't inclined to object. He was, however, a bit surprised when Francis moved away, and even more surprised by what Francis dared to say to him. To say to him while standing within arm's reach, no less.

"For me? What are you getting at?" For a moment he had that dangerous unreasonable mad glint in his eye, the one that foretold violence in the very near future; mercifully the wind didn't blow in that direction, and he only barked an incredulous laugh. "You mean she did it to piss me off? I wish I could say she cared enough for that. That'd be something."

[fabernathy.livejournal.com]

It was a look that Francis unfortunately recognized all too well, and it made his heart flutter desperately for the moment before Charles decided to take it as a joke. He glanced away and ran a hand through his hair, huffing out a quiet breath. "I didn't mean that, no, of course not." What Charles thought of Camilla, he couldn't say, although he thought secretly that Charles knew better than he let on -- but Francis's opinion of Camilla was quite high, and he knew that even if she cared little for anyone else, she at least cared for Charles, and for Henry. And sometimes, for him.

"I just..." He looked up again and faltered, losing his nerve. This was Christmas, and regardless of how Francis actually felt about it, he didn't really want to end it with a black eye. "Never mind, Charles. I was just trying to help." He smiled blandly. "I suppose I was... barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. Is there something else I can do?"

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

And just like that, the wind changed; the glare subsided into a hopeless raw pained vulnerable look, wide-eyed and too open. "No, tell me," Charles insisted. "I want to know what you mean."