Ficlet: Uncontrollable
Title: Uncontrollable
Summary: Men dream of marrying a woman with Veela blood. They don't know what Bill Weasley's life is like.
Word count: 1,000
Rating: PG for sexual themes, het and femslash
Characters: Bill, Fleur
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit
Notes: For snegurochka_lee, a Blue Door tribute and a kind of alternate universe in which the bite has a different effect on Bill. If you haven't read Lee's story, you're missing something wonderful.
At first Bill thinks he is paranoid, filled with this sense of dread he's unable to account for.
She is attractive; everyone knows that. On a grey afternoon in April, in the narrow, cobblestone street where the old women are cleaning up after the market, her hair shines silvery blond, and a teenage boy with a shadow of a mustache inhales sharply as they walk by. As they disembark at Calais in July, the fat, wheezing old man who holds the gangway steady has white knuckles and a dazed look in his watery blue eyes. The man who sells them a new coffee table in a tiny shop in a back alley in Paris is too distracted to add up the bill properly.
Bill has seen this happen a thousand times, and they have been married for just over a year. Fleur always holds her head high, the expression on her beautiful features controlled, and she never looks back.
Over the holidays, at home amidst the chaos of his family, Charlie's old roommate from Romania, a haughty, handsome boy, follows her with wide eyes, entirely silent for four days. Then, finally, when the two of them are in the front hall with their suitcases, surrounded by the entire family, trading so many kisses and hugs and handshakes before returning to France, Bill hears him speak for the first time. The boy's voice is gravely and hoarse, and he speaks with a kind of urgency that makes Bill's skin crawl.
"Tell me what I need to do, Fleur," he says. "Anything. Just tell me."
Charlie laughs loudly and claps his former roommate on the shoulder, pulling him away, telling him to get a hold of himself. Dad's ears are pink, and he gives Bill a sympathetic glance. Unperturbed, Fleur hugs Ginny tightly one more time, squeezing her shoulders and murmuring something Bill can't quite hear.
Bill's face feels frozen in a smile, and his heart is beating so loudly he hears it in his ears, drowning out the goodbyes and well wishes.
After they get back to their flat Fleur looks at him with that unreadable, cool expression and the faintest wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"You do not need to be jealous, Bill. That is what it is like, being part Veela," she says simply. "Men look at me. It is a fact of life. It does not have anything to do with me. You know how it is."
Bill knows very well how it is. He knows the heady, adrenaline rush of being with Fleur in the street, the sidelong, envious looks that men give him, despite the scars, the ugly comments that sometimes linger in the air as they pass by the town center, where the men stand outside the post office in twos and threes. What he had never noticed until that last day at his parents' house was that Fleur looks, too.
Standing in the front hall, at the end of the holidays, Bill finally understood. That day it was the neckline of Ginny's shirt, which plunged between her breasts and revealed pale, freckled curves. Two days later, back in France, it is the greengrocer's wife, who wears old-fashioned A-line dresses with belts, whose dark hair pulls free from the band and curls in tendrils on the back of her neck. Gabrielle's closest friend has midnight-black eyes and full lips and a lopsided, quicksilver smile. The woman who will mind the baby is pale and blond like Fleur, but with short, curly hair and soft curves and shirts that gap between the buttons, pulling gently.
He sees Fleur's breath hitch as she notices these things, and he watches for the tiniest, tell-tale flicker of her blue eyes, which slide back and forth almost without expression, watching, so carefully, so intensely.
He waits for her at the end of the day, in an armchair turned to face the door, pretending to read. His mouth is dry, and he tries not to let his eyes wander to the clock when she finally returns home from work. She is never late.
"You do not have to worry like this," Fleur says as she sets the groceries down and takes off her cloak, unwinding her scarf and shaking out her hair. "It is making you ill, this worry."
Bill knows that, but he can't help himself.
At night she lies motionless in bed, soft, pliable, unresponsive, as always. Bill had not really thought about this until now. He wonders what the men in the street would think, if they knew.
"You do not need to stop on account of the baby," she whispers one night, and Bill can only roll over to face the wall, breathing regularly as if he were asleep. He wonders if fear is paralyzing him. He wonders if Fleur thinks this is an aftereffect of the bite.
Fleur does not bring up the subject again.
Charlie understands and does not understand.
"It's got to be hard," Charlie says sympathetically over coffee one night well past midnight, when their wives are in bed. "You think something is going to happen. But you can't let it bother you like this. It's getting out of hand."
Bill groans and buries his face in his hands.
"I don't think women see these things the same way," Charlie says. "And, hell, even if something happens, you know Marina and I...well, we came through."
Bill does not tell him that Marina is the worst, because Fleur lights up when Marina enters the room, eyes widening, lips parting slightly, her face animated and flushed. Bill's palms are sweaty when they are all together in the same room, his nerves shattered, and Fleur is lost in thought when they are alone in bed at night. She smiles in her sleep, a sweet half-smile he has never seen on her face while she is awake.
Bill decides that they will not visit Charlie and Marina again and refuses to hear Fleur's protests. They skip the annual family gathering in England at the holidays, making excuses about Fleur's health and the difficulty of travel. Charlie, concerned, sends a letter about werewolves and obsessions and "talking about things," but Bill doesn't reply.
Shortly after the baby is born in January, when they have been at home together for nearly three weeks, side by side, Bill and Fleur are resting in the darkness of the living room. One small lamp casts long shadows. The baby is finally asleep in the bedroom, and Fleur is sitting in the armchair, her hair unwashed, dark circles beneath her eyes. One pale hand is extended over the plush arm of the chair, and her wrist looks so thin, so fragile.
"You are worried again," Fleur says, following his gaze with a light, tired laugh. "Who will want me, like this?"
"I--" Bill says, voice cracking.
"You are not just my husband," Fleur says quietly. "You are my friend. You are the father of my child. What do I have to say to you?"
"Tell me it's me," Bill says. His heart is in his throat, and he dreads her response. "Tell me I am the only one."
"Of course it is you," Fleur says. "This is what I want for my life: you, the flat, the baby."
"I don't need an Unbreakable Vow, I just need--" Bill breaks off, uncertain what to say.
Fleur looks at him, a thin smile on her lips. "You already have your Unbreakable Vow," she says, holding up her left hand so that the band faces him and catches the light. "Here. I stood up and told everyone how things will be. How they are meant to be. Husband, wife, child. There is no other way. It is what I said."
The truth about the vow hits Bill with the force of an unexpected winter storm, but it doesn't make him feel any better.
He thinks of this conversation a hundred times over the years, whenever he and Fleur see a beautiful woman who passes by, unaffected by silvery blond hair or pale skin or the magnetism of Veela blood.
He dreads the day that one of them, unexpectedly, looks back. Fleur doesn't yet know what the word uncontrollable means.
Summary: Men dream of marrying a woman with Veela blood. They don't know what Bill Weasley's life is like.
Word count: 1,000
Rating: PG for sexual themes, het and femslash
Characters: Bill, Fleur
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit
Notes: For snegurochka_lee, a Blue Door tribute and a kind of alternate universe in which the bite has a different effect on Bill. If you haven't read Lee's story, you're missing something wonderful.
At first Bill thinks he is paranoid, filled with this sense of dread he's unable to account for.
She is attractive; everyone knows that. On a grey afternoon in April, in the narrow, cobblestone street where the old women are cleaning up after the market, her hair shines silvery blond, and a teenage boy with a shadow of a mustache inhales sharply as they walk by. As they disembark at Calais in July, the fat, wheezing old man who holds the gangway steady has white knuckles and a dazed look in his watery blue eyes. The man who sells them a new coffee table in a tiny shop in a back alley in Paris is too distracted to add up the bill properly.
Bill has seen this happen a thousand times, and they have been married for just over a year. Fleur always holds her head high, the expression on her beautiful features controlled, and she never looks back.
Over the holidays, at home amidst the chaos of his family, Charlie's old roommate from Romania, a haughty, handsome boy, follows her with wide eyes, entirely silent for four days. Then, finally, when the two of them are in the front hall with their suitcases, surrounded by the entire family, trading so many kisses and hugs and handshakes before returning to France, Bill hears him speak for the first time. The boy's voice is gravely and hoarse, and he speaks with a kind of urgency that makes Bill's skin crawl.
"Tell me what I need to do, Fleur," he says. "Anything. Just tell me."
Charlie laughs loudly and claps his former roommate on the shoulder, pulling him away, telling him to get a hold of himself. Dad's ears are pink, and he gives Bill a sympathetic glance. Unperturbed, Fleur hugs Ginny tightly one more time, squeezing her shoulders and murmuring something Bill can't quite hear.
Bill's face feels frozen in a smile, and his heart is beating so loudly he hears it in his ears, drowning out the goodbyes and well wishes.
After they get back to their flat Fleur looks at him with that unreadable, cool expression and the faintest wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"You do not need to be jealous, Bill. That is what it is like, being part Veela," she says simply. "Men look at me. It is a fact of life. It does not have anything to do with me. You know how it is."
Bill knows very well how it is. He knows the heady, adrenaline rush of being with Fleur in the street, the sidelong, envious looks that men give him, despite the scars, the ugly comments that sometimes linger in the air as they pass by the town center, where the men stand outside the post office in twos and threes. What he had never noticed until that last day at his parents' house was that Fleur looks, too.
Standing in the front hall, at the end of the holidays, Bill finally understood. That day it was the neckline of Ginny's shirt, which plunged between her breasts and revealed pale, freckled curves. Two days later, back in France, it is the greengrocer's wife, who wears old-fashioned A-line dresses with belts, whose dark hair pulls free from the band and curls in tendrils on the back of her neck. Gabrielle's closest friend has midnight-black eyes and full lips and a lopsided, quicksilver smile. The woman who will mind the baby is pale and blond like Fleur, but with short, curly hair and soft curves and shirts that gap between the buttons, pulling gently.
He sees Fleur's breath hitch as she notices these things, and he watches for the tiniest, tell-tale flicker of her blue eyes, which slide back and forth almost without expression, watching, so carefully, so intensely.
He waits for her at the end of the day, in an armchair turned to face the door, pretending to read. His mouth is dry, and he tries not to let his eyes wander to the clock when she finally returns home from work. She is never late.
"You do not have to worry like this," Fleur says as she sets the groceries down and takes off her cloak, unwinding her scarf and shaking out her hair. "It is making you ill, this worry."
Bill knows that, but he can't help himself.
At night she lies motionless in bed, soft, pliable, unresponsive, as always. Bill had not really thought about this until now. He wonders what the men in the street would think, if they knew.
"You do not need to stop on account of the baby," she whispers one night, and Bill can only roll over to face the wall, breathing regularly as if he were asleep. He wonders if fear is paralyzing him. He wonders if Fleur thinks this is an aftereffect of the bite.
Fleur does not bring up the subject again.
Charlie understands and does not understand.
"It's got to be hard," Charlie says sympathetically over coffee one night well past midnight, when their wives are in bed. "You think something is going to happen. But you can't let it bother you like this. It's getting out of hand."
Bill groans and buries his face in his hands.
"I don't think women see these things the same way," Charlie says. "And, hell, even if something happens, you know Marina and I...well, we came through."
Bill does not tell him that Marina is the worst, because Fleur lights up when Marina enters the room, eyes widening, lips parting slightly, her face animated and flushed. Bill's palms are sweaty when they are all together in the same room, his nerves shattered, and Fleur is lost in thought when they are alone in bed at night. She smiles in her sleep, a sweet half-smile he has never seen on her face while she is awake.
Bill decides that they will not visit Charlie and Marina again and refuses to hear Fleur's protests. They skip the annual family gathering in England at the holidays, making excuses about Fleur's health and the difficulty of travel. Charlie, concerned, sends a letter about werewolves and obsessions and "talking about things," but Bill doesn't reply.
Shortly after the baby is born in January, when they have been at home together for nearly three weeks, side by side, Bill and Fleur are resting in the darkness of the living room. One small lamp casts long shadows. The baby is finally asleep in the bedroom, and Fleur is sitting in the armchair, her hair unwashed, dark circles beneath her eyes. One pale hand is extended over the plush arm of the chair, and her wrist looks so thin, so fragile.
"You are worried again," Fleur says, following his gaze with a light, tired laugh. "Who will want me, like this?"
"I--" Bill says, voice cracking.
"You are not just my husband," Fleur says quietly. "You are my friend. You are the father of my child. What do I have to say to you?"
"Tell me it's me," Bill says. His heart is in his throat, and he dreads her response. "Tell me I am the only one."
"Of course it is you," Fleur says. "This is what I want for my life: you, the flat, the baby."
"I don't need an Unbreakable Vow, I just need--" Bill breaks off, uncertain what to say.
Fleur looks at him, a thin smile on her lips. "You already have your Unbreakable Vow," she says, holding up her left hand so that the band faces him and catches the light. "Here. I stood up and told everyone how things will be. How they are meant to be. Husband, wife, child. There is no other way. It is what I said."
The truth about the vow hits Bill with the force of an unexpected winter storm, but it doesn't make him feel any better.
He thinks of this conversation a hundred times over the years, whenever he and Fleur see a beautiful woman who passes by, unaffected by silvery blond hair or pale skin or the magnetism of Veela blood.
He dreads the day that one of them, unexpectedly, looks back. Fleur doesn't yet know what the word uncontrollable means.