Author's Notes: Written for the First Aid (angst) activity for Camp Potter.
Write something using the mandatory prompts "fragile", "slamming doors", "'we can never starve our loneliness. We can only hope that, by the company of others, it doesn't devour us' - Christopher Poindexter"
)O(
"I don't want you to leave," Rabastan murmured, as if by whimpering more piteously than ever, he might, this time, sway his brother. He had ben trying for months, and never had Rodolphus shown an ounce of indecision (even in his distress at Rabastan's crying), but with only one night left before the train would come and steal away Rabastan's brother for an eternal four months, it was the only card he had to play.
"I know you don't." Rodolphus ran his hand over Rabastan's hair in what might have been a tender, loving gesture were it not so tinted with bitterness. "But I have to go, and I am going. It's not really so bad - Christmas will come and I'll be home before you even–"
"No you won't!" Rabastan interrupted, before Rodolphus could say before you even know it. "I'll die before you come back!"
Rodolphus struck out and hit Rabastan hard across the face. The blow shocked him into silence, and he gaped at his brother, clutching his stinging cheek. Rodolphus had never hit him before. Father beat, and Mother slapped, but even when Rabastan most deserved it, Rodolphus had never been anything but endlessly patient and gentle.
"Don't you dare say that!" he yelled, and Rabastan's lip began to wobble. He hated hearing his brother shout - it was a rarity, and he had never shouted at him before. "You're not going to die! You can't die! Don't even say that!"
"But–"
"But nothing!" Tears leaked from the corners of Rodolphus's eyes, and he dashed them away with the back of his hand. "You're not going to die. You're not, you're not, you're not!"
Rabastan sniffled and turned away, burying his face in the pillow. Rodolphus just didn't understand. He didn't understand how Rabastan dreaded those long, long months of waking up in a cold, empty bed, of not having anyone to talk to, of having to endure Mother and Father and all of their horrible guests by himself, of the endless loneliness that would loneliness that would cripple him until he was with his brother again. Rodolphus was never lonely, and Rabastan almost always was, except when he was with his brother. Only when Rodolphus's arms were around him did he not feel as if he was completely alone and helpless in the world, and no one, not even Rodolphus, knew how quickly that loneliness crept up and started to eat away at him when they were apart. Four months before he saw his brother again! Being dead woul be preferable.
He heard Rodolphus sigh a plaintive, long-suffering sigh, and then his arms wrapped around Rabastan's waist. Almost against his will, Rabastan found himself nuzzling his head back into Rodolphus's shoulder.
"I'm going to miss you just as much as you're going to miss me, you know," Rodolphus whispered. "I wish you could come with me, but you can't. But I promise I'll write to you every week- every day. Just be brave for me, all right?"
Rabastan didn't say anything, but he found Rodolphus's hand with his and squeezed it as tightly as he could, and Rodolphus squeezed right back.
That night was the saddest Rabastan could remember, but it was nothing in comparison to the agony of the next morning. He was awoken by the sounds of Rodolphus moving around the room, and he wanted to scream at him to come back to bed, not to let the morning come. He was crying before he even sat up, but though Rodolphus looked at him, his forehead lined in sadness, he said nothing to comfort him.
Rabastan was not invited to the station, which was for the best, for he didn't know if he could have managed it without making a fool of himself. He stood in the doorway, clinging to Rodolphus, and wept bitter tears into his shoulder until they were forcibly pried apart, and Rodolphus was led away by their parents, leaving Rabastan to cry and fling himself against the window, watching his brother's retreating back.
He fell ill that very night.
His parents thought nothing of it, for Rabastan was a fragile boy, and more often sick than not, but as Rabastan lay in bed, feverish and dizzy, he felt sure that he was indeed going to die. Days and nights passed with little distinction in his mind, for his curtains were drawn, and in his state, he had no sense of the passage of time. The only mark by which he knew that time was moving at all was when he was prodded awake and potions and medicines were poured down his throat in some vain attempt to break his fever and rouse him from bed. Sometimes his parents stood in the room - far away from him, clutching perfumed handkerchiefs over their noses, and murmuring worriedly, and then they were gone, without him ever becoming aware of them leaving or himself falling asleep. And night after night he woke in cold sweats and screamed for his brother until a healer or a house-elf came in to put sleeping pills on his tongue.
Days of illness were nothing unusual for Rabastan, and weeks were hardly a rarity either, but three weeks passed, and then four, and then it had been a month since Rabastan was out of bed, and the Lestranges began to whisper that he might never rise from his bed. At the turn of the second month, they spoke of his death as a foregone conclusion and began to plan the funeral. As the third month of Rabastan's illness approached, the only cause for uncertainty they had was that he had not died yet. But however many cures they forced upon him, there was no change to be seen, and Rabastan only writhed in the perspiration-soaked sheets and begged hysterically for a brother that was not there.
Rabastan was aware of little during those months of illness, but he sat upright in bed as if pulled by strings when he heard his bedroom door slam and familiar footsteps running across the hardwood floor. In his own mind, he was hardly sure of what was happening, but his body acted on cue, on instinct, and he flung his arms around his brother when Rodolphus tumbled down upon the bed with him.
"Rabastan- oh, Rabastan!" In four endless months, Rabastan could not remember hearing a single word spoken to him, but he heard his brother's teary voice as clearly as if he was not ill at all, and the sound would remain burned into his mind forever. He had never heard him sound so afraid.
"They didn't tell me you were sick." Rodolphus's hands ran shakily, desperately, over Rabastan's hollowed cheeks, his thin and straw like hair, his bony hands. "They didn't tell me, I didn't know, I would have come back, oh, Rabastan!" And he pressed his cheek against Rabastan's and sobbed as terribly as ever Rabastan had.
Rabastan could not choke out words, but he clutched at his brother and cried too, until neither of them could tell whose tears were streaming down their cheeks.
)O(
Fin