Written for Arashi (Rain Sky)'s 'idiosyncrasies' challenge at xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange forum.
Prompt: This time, the theme is idiosyncrasies! It can center around either a romantic couple or just close kin. One or both characters consider the little quirks of the other they drives him/her crazy, as well as the character in question's response to other people's reactions to said idiosyncrasy. It can be something literal like a habit or more like a pastime that others disapprove of. I'd also like you to incorporate a location outside of Hogwarts/Ministry.
Dedicated to Jasper (The Psychotic House-Elf) because this was very much influenced by him. (Unfortunately.)
Rodolphus was gnawing on his upper lip again. He was gnawing on his upper lip at the dining table, between courses.
Bellatrix glowered at him over the unlit candles, their silver stems glinting brightly in the midday sun. But Rodolphus continued to nibble, as if he were underfed and the bit of dried, flaked skin of his lip was the necessary nourishment he needed to survive.
She saw a bit of his teeth, slightly yellowed from too much coffee and not enough tooth-brushing, poking out from between his lips; the lower one was slicked with a minimal amount of spit, but still enough to lend it a slight sheen.
"Would you bloody stop that!" she shrieked finally, unable to keep it in any longer.
He was always chewing that stupid lip of his, always nibbling, gnawing, biting, never drawing blood but always making it redder than it needed to be, and always, always, letting a bit of spit slicken his lower lip. Sometimes – Bellatrix wrinkled her nose subconsciously, her own lips curling back in disgust – sometimes a bit of his spit would leak down over his lips and it would linger there, on his face, until he wiped it away.
"Stop what?" Rodolphus asked, unperturbed.
"Biting your stupid lip!"
He nodded absently, half humming his consent, and he turned his attention towards his half empty glass of wine – and returned to chewing on his lip.
"I said stop it!" she screamed. "Stop biting your stupid fucking lip or I'll cut it off!"
He regarded her blandly.
A house-elf slid a steaming plate of braised lamb before him, and he turned his attention to the food – again nibbling at his lip.
Bellatrix's eyes widened with sudden, passionate rage.
"I told you to stop!" she yelled, grabbing the serrated, bone-hilted knife beside her plate and lunging across the table, knocking the candles aside, accidentally digging a knee into Rodolphus's plate of lamb – which was very hot and covered with oozing gravy – and grabbing him by the collar.
And then, as he yelped and tried to swat at her, she attempted to cut off his lip, but missed because of all his thrashing, and stabbed him in the eye instead.
He screamed. "What the fuck, Bellatrix!"
She stabbed him in the other eye, because she was startled, and tended to react with violence.
And then she noticed that Rodolphus, even now with his eyes stabbed and bloody, was still chewing on his lip. So she shrieked something incoherent and tried to cut his lip off again, but he was lashing his arms about even more wildly, so she missed again and got him in the cheek.
He screamed again and tried to grab his own knife, but he was blind, so he didn't know where it was, and ended up patting at the table, his wife's legs, and accidentally (the first time), her breasts in his eyeless search. But alas, it came to naught, and Bellatrix, far too enraged to appreciate any groping from her husband, retaliated by cutting off his hands the fifth time they squeezed her chest balloons.
Rodolphus fainted from the shock of his handlessness, and the blood loss, and the incredible pain, because serrated dinner knives are not made for cutting through bone, and Bellatrix had to really saw at his wrists for a few minutes.
He fell over sideways onto the granite floors, and due to a very rare condition known as thinskullism, which is not the technical medical terminology, he had a very weak, thin skull, which cracked, rather like an egg, on impact.
Bellatrix stared at her mauled, possibly dead husband, and remembered that she was very hungry. And so she got off the dining table, delicately wiped off the food from her robes, and sat on the cold floor beside her husband, who was twitching slightly and still quite warm.
She took a fork off the table, and began to cut her husband into little pieces, and took a few nibbles.
It was a bit like steak tartar, she decided, and ate a bit more. She licked her lips, then frowned, wondering how she would explain her husband's death to the Ministry.
And she began to nibble at her upper lip as she considered her options.
Thoughts?