Thank god this is over! This was definitely one of the most tedious things I have EVER written.
First Mate of the KBOW ship. No prompts used: the subject was Creatures. Katie gets Dragon Blood shots.
Needle Phobia
"Oh my god!" Katie squealed, looking from the letter in her hand, then up at Oliver, then back down and up again. "You're kidding!"
"I had some free cash." Oliver shrugged, leaning against the working surface. "I thought that we could at least go on holiday. We haven't been able to before."
Katie looked back down at the letter again, and then threw her arms around her boyfriend. "I love you!" She squealed, squeezing the life out of him. "Oh, this will be so fun! Where are we going? Malibu? Hawaii? Switzerland? Brazil? I don't care really, as long as I'm with you Ollie!"
"Is that right?" Oliver chuckled, brushing his lips against Katie's gently. "I thought you'd be interested..."
Katie moved her arms to thread around his neck, and let out a sharp squeal of surprise as the kitchen table bit into her back.
They snogged a while longer, but before Oliver got any more wrapped up in his girlfriend, she pulled away, exasperation in her blue eyes.
"Oliver?" She asked, expertly avoiding his arms and dodging around his body. "You know you told me about how Puddlemere are taking a group trip to South Africa this August?"
"Yes?" Oliver asked, eyes widening. Shit. She'd noticed...
Katie turned towards the sink, grabbing her wand out of her pocket and pouring boiling water out of it - a handy trick, learnt from Angelina when she described how she cleaned baby Freddie's clothes one 'girls-get-together' Sunday.
The 'get-together' Sundays always included alcohol - mostly red wine, but Alicia had nicked some of Lee's beer a few months back, and white wine was also acceptable - graphic descriptions of baby sick, husband/boyfriend eating habits, family reunions and work. The Weasley Wives (Ginny included, although she was a Potter, and Fleur as well, after a year-long battle), Alicia, Katie, along with Hannah Longbottom, met in Grimmauld Place for these 'meetings'.
Definitely the most notable of these 'meetings' was the one where Alicia brought along a Muggle DVD called 'Silence Of The Lambs'. Maybe the blood on the cover should have alerted them, but Katie had not slept properly for months after that. Muggle horror movies were generally more violent than the reports the Auror office got of the great Chimera killings of '00z
Little Freddie Weasley (named for his late Uncle) had a problem with bed-wetting at the moment (just another reason why Katie didn't want children). Angelina had reluctantly shown the group all the Hot Water Charm, but has made them all promise not to say a word as George was convinced that it was a 'trade secret'.
Even though, funnily enough, the spell had been discovered centuries earlier by Bob Binkins.
"You're taking me to South Africa with your Quidditch Team, aren't you?" Katie sighed, dumping the plates into the sink. It wasn't that Puddlemere United weren't a nice lot, but Katie couldn't help but want a romantic holiday with her boyfriend, especially after dating for seven years. The Team would just get in the way of that.
"It's still a holiday!" Oliver said defensively. "Sure, you have to take shots-"
"I WHAT?" Katie screamed. It was well-known that she had a bad phobia of needles; along with spiders and crowded rooms and cramped spaces, and so the clashing of crockery in the sink went as no surprise. "No... I'm not taking shots... No... No way..."
"Come on Belle..." Oliver sighed, walking across the room to take Katie's hand. "It's just a little one. Dragon's blood, it protects you from anything. Please Katie-Belle? I really want to have you there..."
Katie sighed deeply, and nodded, once up and once down. She didn't try herself to speak, as she knew that an entire variety of words related to needle phobia and how annoyed Oliver made her sometimes would come spilling out of her mouth.
"Great!" Oliver grinned. "I'll go and let the guys know that you're coming then!"
As her boyfriend left, Katie lifted her hands out of the boiling water and surveyed her red palms with exasperation. Seven years of dating. Even Alicia and Lee were engaged, and George and Angelina had been married for almost two years.
When would Oliver ask her? She knew that he had been thinking about it, before the Final Battle, but then Fred died, and nothing seemed right that wouldn't include one of their oldest and best friends. It had taken Katie long enough to move on with her life (it was harder to do than initially expected), and when she had returned from treatment for a relapse of her cursed state; from St. Mungo's, Oliver never spoke of getting engaged again.
Katie would have left him, if she hadn't heard out Angelina. George had gone through alcoholism, and even a period where he sat and stared at walls for long periods of time.
"Oliver loves you." Angelina had sighed. "He honestly does. Just give him time to sort his life and work out, okay Kate? Anyway, guys don't understand how our minds work."
It only took a few seconds to get the plates washing themselves, and then Katie stood on tiptoes to reach the cupboard in which she kept her pills. Bottles of them. Blue for her insomnia, red for her paranoia, green to keep back relapses, and a clean white pill, that got rid of her headaches.
She gulped them all down at once, aided by a mug of strong tea, seasoned by three spoonfuls of sugar, and then Katie flopped down at the kitchen table, staring at the wall opposite and imagining shadow shaped patterns onto it.
oOo
"You're girls coming then." Roger grinned, shaking his head. "Geez, you two have been dating for ages now. How many years, six?"
"Seven." Oliver said proudly. "We started dating the year the Harpies won the Quidditch League. I remember the anniversary because it was the 400th Anniversary of the Ballycastle Bats."
Roger quirked an eyebrow. "No plans to propose then?"
Immediately Oliver choked. Roger thumped him on the back a few times, trying to dislodge the phantom object, but when Oliver straightened up again, he looked a little less hostile.
"Yes." He said curtly. "While we're on holiday, in fact."
"You have no idea when though." Roger explained for him. "Oliver, mate, you aren't seriously just going to spring the question on her when you're out shopping or something?"
Oliver shuddered. "God, no..." He muttered. "No shopping. Not with me, at least."
"Did you even listen to what I said?" Roger demanded, quickly losing his patience.
"I'll figure something out." Oliver said flippantly, waving a hand. "Now, the main problem is getting Katie to take the Dragon's Blood shots..."
Roger shrugged (he was a man of few words, and not all of them pleasant ones). "Just... I dunno, give her a sleeping pill or something." He suggested.
"That won't work." Oliver replied instantly. "Maybe I could lure her out, pretend we're going shopping or something?"
"I doubt Katie would take you seriously mate." Roger smirked. "Just shag her before."
oOo
"This won't hurt at all." The Healer said kindly, gripping Katie's arm with her freezing fingers, making her shudder. "Sorry my hands are so cold dear. The boys all complained a lot more than you are, and they're all professional Quidditch players!"
Katie just nodded mutely, feeling her arm tense up. She could see that bloody huge needle in the corner of her eye (why hadn't the Wizarding World simply invented a magical way of doing this kind of thing?), lying on the desk, as long as her little finger. Katie blanched, forcing her eyes away from the needle and back towards the Healer, and then quickly back down to her hands.
She felt sick. Sick all over. She was sweating now, and her heart was thumping at a million miles an hour. All because of a needle, containing dragon blood. Nothing big. She looked up, to see Oliver smiling at her encouragingly.
Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot.
Why was Oliver so dense that he couldn't see how terrified she was? There was a huge bloody needle lying on the table next to her, the Healer's hands were really, really cold, and now the aforementioned woman was filling out a form painfully slowly.
It almost made Katie want to stab herself with the needle.
"Right dearie." Why couldn't the bloody woman just hurry up and stab her? Katie swallowed back vomit, closing her eyes again, and trying to ignore the needle. "I'm going to count down from five, okay? Five, four, three, two-"
The needle stabbed straight into her arm, and Katie gagged as the dragon's blood went into her bloodstream. She felt dizzy, sick, and Katie wanted to find a comfy bed and crawl into it, never getting out.
"Are you okay?"
Katie nodded, trying to stand up, but falling right over, knocking her head on the floor and going straight into darkness.
oOo
"I'm sorry." Katie groaned, taking the mug of strong tea and the pills that Oliver handed her. "You have to miss the World Championships."
Oliver managed a smile (inside he was screaming and crying about that fact), and awkwardly patted Katie's shoulder. "It's okay." He insisted, before swallowing and looking out of the window. "Some people are allergic to Dragon Blood."
Katie sneezed into a handkerchief, pulled a face at the noise she made, and flopped backwards on her pillows. "I really appreciate this, you know?" She said, rubbing at her eyes blearily. "I know you'd rather be in South Africa right now."
"No, it's okay." Oliver lied through his teeth, forcing a smile. "I'd much rather be with you Belle. Now, Angelina brought some soup over. How do microwaves work again?"
"Press the big red- ACHOO! Don't worry I'll... Just... I'll have it cold." Katie sighed, pushing her hair off of her face. "Cold soup can't be too - ACHOO! - bad, right?"
"Don't sneeze on me." Oliver shuddered. "You have the flu, Katie. I could really do without getting ill myself at this moment in time."
"Just go and get the bloody soup." Katie muttered.
Oliver trooped out of the room, slightly dejected, Katie watching him go. She closed her eyes after the door had shut, and quenched the want to pull the covers up over her head. She badly wanted to get her mother over, and get the same care that she got when she was just little. Oliver might be her boyfriend, but he also had an atrocious bedside manner that rendered any feelings of that kind null and void when Katie was feeling as ill as she did.
"How long will you be?" Katie called out, hearing a few bangs and crashes. "Oliver? Are you okay down there?"
"I figured out how to use the microwave!"