Author's Note: I realize slow burn wips are tough to keep up with, so thanks for sticking with me. Not too much longer, guys. I promise.
When Wirt came back to his room after eating and getting through his daily dose of strained dinner conversations with the parents, he found Beatrice asleep on his bed. She stirred only slightly when he closed the door and Wirt tried to be quiet as he placed a plate with two pizza slices for Beatrice, down on his nightstand. She was snoring softly and a small amount of drool was escaping her mouth and falling onto his pillow, a sight that amused him simply for its serenity. He'd never seen her so calm. Although, Wirt reminded himself, he had never actually seen Beatrice in her human form in person until that day and even in her disheveled state, she was prettier than any image he'd stared at for long periods of time. That was something he'd done often during winter break when she had stopped sending him tapes. Now she was here, a living, breathing version and not just some flat image hidden under his pillow. It was something Wirt still had a hard time wrapping his brain around. Things had taken a sharp turn so quickly and now Beatrice was actually in his world when just hours before he had believed she was lost to him.
Suddenly she made a little noise like maybe she was dreaming and Wirt debated waking her. He had brought the pizza back to the room for Beatrice to eat, but after everything that had happened, she must have been exhausted. Wirt knew he was and he hadn't been through nearly as much as Beatrice. Maybe after falling from the wall, rest was what her body needed more than food.
While he stared at Beatrice, going back and forth in his mind what to do, she shifted, causing a stray lock of red to tumble in front of her face. Wirt watched as it fell and for the first time really noticed the color of her hair, a red and orange combination he'd never seen before … at least not on someone who didn't have access to hair dye. Wirt didn't think hair dye existed over on Beatrice's side, but he really couldn't be sure. Maybe there was some magic you could use that turned your hair into a fiery red with traces of sun in it. Either way he felt in awe of its color and that poetic side of him felt an itch to compose some verses about the way it looked.
After compiling a short list of words in his head that rhymed with red and Beatrice, Wirt found himself looking past that brilliant hair and onto the face underneath. There were so many freckles, too numerous to count. She'd told him that they made her feel self-conscious, but Wirt didn't know why. If anything they added to her unique attractiveness and he swept the fallen hair away and gently tucked it behind her ear to get a better look. He never would have dared moving her hair if Beatrice had been awake and the thought of her catching him sent a rush of embarrassment through his body. It wasn't enough to stop him though, and once the red strands were moved he looked closely at her resting face.
Before he could really get a good look though, Beatrice grimaced in her sleep and then grumbled like she was upset. This caused Wirt to reel back away from her as he muffled a noise of dread at having been caught in the act of … what? Being weirdly intrigued by his houseguest? He couldn't use that as an excuse and ransacked his brain for anything to say other than, Hey Beatrice, I just really wanted to get a good look at how pretty you are, but that was the only thing that came to mind. Wirt briefly entertained the thought of running out of his room to escape the upcoming awkwardness, but dropped that idea knowing it really wouldn't solve the problem. He would just have to be mature and deal with the consequences no matter how bad.
To his utter relief though, she didn't follow up with anything like a yell telling him to get out of her personal space and he figured her irritation had probably been a response to the dream he suspected she was having. Wirt came in close again, but lost his courage, feeling that he was probably being very weird … even for him and decided to just leave Beatrice alone until she woke up on her own. But while pulling away, Wirt's eyes fell on a small purplish circle near her left temple and once he recognized it as a bruise, panic set in again, but for an entirely different reason.
Weren't you supposed to keep victims of head injuries awake?
He wasn't sure how hard Beatrice had hit her head, but the bruise was proof that she had hit it in some capacity and that meant the possibility of a concussion. The exact rules in situations like hers weren't clear in Wirt's memory, but he thought that keeping a person awake after a fall might be important. As someone who injured easily, Wirt had experienced his fair share of trips to the nurse's office at school and urgent cares around town. The no sleep after a head injury rule was something he thought he remembered learning during one of those visits and it meant he was going to have to wake her. "Beatrice," he whispered, leaning down so that he was inches from her face, but she didn't respond. Wirt repeated her name, increasing the volume on his voice, and without warning, she reached out a hand that hit him in the face.
"W-where am I?" Beatrice bolted upright and thankfully for Wirt, he had already moved out of her way.
"Well, you're in my room and you just punched me in the nose," Writ nasally replied, sitting down on his bed. Beatrice's blow had knocked the gauze away and he was pinching his nostrils together to keep blood from seeping out.
Beatrice placed both of her hands over her face and began to rub her grogginess away, but stopped after only a few seconds. "Ow," she complained and the pain in her wrist pushed her into awareness. "Oh, I forgot where I was and thought you weren't real. You sounded funny."
"Trust me. I'm real and so is my nose you just punched." Wirt ran a finger underneath his nostrils to catch any blood, but his skin came back just as pale as it always was without any trace of red. "Guess I'm lucky there's no blood this time."
"That part of your face has been through a lot today, hasn't it?" Beatrice used a teasing tone, but also managed to express sympathy as she reached out her good hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Her touch made Wirt slightly uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. "Well, I did promise to punch you before, so there you go." She sent him a wry smile and he sighed, but eventually returned her grin.
"I guess, I shouldn't be surprised considering your desire to punch things. Do you always get so violent with anyone who tries to wake you up?" Wirt replied sarcastically.
Beatrice narrowed her eyes at him. "I was having a bad dream."
"Oh, do you want to talk about it?" Wirt asked, all traces of mocking gone as a guilty feeling crept up on him for being so glib before. "I had those too for a while, bad dreams … you know, after coming back. Mostly about Greg and …" his voice trailed off. Wirt didn't really want to remember those dreams or the actual events they were inspired by.
Beatrice sensed his uneasiness and patted his shoulder. "Just family stuff, nothing like what you're talking about. I think I was dreaming about my cousin Louisa and I must have punched you thinking you were her."
Wirt chuckled. "You want to punch your cousin?"
"You have no idea," she replied. "She's horrible, but … I don't really feel like talking about it right now." Beatrice shook her head and let out a sigh.
Wirt could hear the undertones of animosity that trailed into sadness as Beatrice spoke and even if she said she didn't want to tell him why this cousin deserved a fist to the face, Wirt's empathy kept him from complying. "What did she do to you?"
"I said I don't want to talk about it," Beatrice reiterated more forcefully and suddenly it was like there was a wall between them. This Beatrice, hot tempered and guarded, reminded him of the one he knew before. The one he didn't like at first.
"Uh, okay, but I just wanted to help." Wirt tried to shrug off her rebuff and not take it too personally, but failed. His feelings were hurt and he could see Beatrice recognizing this in him with a wince.
"Sorry, I didn't mean for that to come out sounding so mean. It's only … if I talk about this thing with my cousin Louisa then I'll have to decide what I'm going to do about it and … I don't want to do that right now. I'd rather just enjoy being here. Can't I ignore all my problems back at home? At least for now?" She tentatively reached out her hand, pulled it back and then finally settled it over his.
Wirt stared down at that hand with its injured knuckles and remembered Beatrice admitting how she had punched the garden wall over missing him and it disabled the filter inside his brain that kept him from saying how he really felt, because of fear. "I know what you mean," he responded looking back up at her. "I kind of felt the same way when I found you in the cemetery. I know I can't hide you forever. I have to figure out a plan for an after, but I didn't want to think about it. I was just happy that you were here and that's all I wanted to fit into my head. I-I know it's dumb, but I feel that if I think too deeply about you being here that you'll just disappear and after worrying about you so much when you stopped sending tapes, that's the last thing I would want, because I um, I … like you too much."
Wirt ended up confessing more than he intended and could see a smile forming on Beatrice's face as she recognized what he already had … he was blushing. Quickly he turned away from her to hide his red face. "Okay then. I won't ask you anymore about your cousin or what's going on back home. You can tell me when you're ready and here, maybe some food will make you feel better." Embarrassment was causing Wirt to speak and move entirely too fast and when he reached for the pizza on the nightstand, his quick grip on the plate caused the slices to fall off and into Beatrice's lap.
"Wirt!" she complained. "Calm down. Why are you so worked up?"
"S-sorry, sorry." He didn't answer her question, but did remove the pizza and placed it back on the plate. Then he tossed a dirty T-shirt from the floor at Beatrice to help clean up the mess of pizza sauce and cheese he'd made on her dress. Wirt didn't offer to do it himself even though he had been the cause. In his flustered state he couldn't imagine placing his hands so near Beatrice's thighs. He just walked away to sit on the floor, and placing his laptop on his bent knees, Wirt crouched forward as if to hide himself behind the small device.
"Wirt?" Beatrice said, sounding almost like she wasn't sure of herself.
"Hmmm, yeah?" He peeked up from behind the laptop.
"I … never mind." She looked away from him, her expression unreadable, and settled on the pizzas Wirt had rescued from her lap. They were still somewhat edible and picking one up she started to eat, but was going about it wrong. Beatrice bit down crust first and Wirt wanted to explain to her the more efficient way of eating pizza, but couldn't bring himself to say anything. Instead he kept quiet, locked in a bundle of chaotic emotions.
He was confused. He was embarrassed. He was nervous. And he was reluctant to add anything to what he'd already said. Yeah, he liked Beatrice, but not in the same sense that he had once liked Sara. He'd known Sara for years. She was the only girl he'd ever wanted and him and Beatrice … well, they had only known each other for a few months. It wasn't enough time and it felt nothing like how he had felt for Sara. But still … he had been wrong about her and now he couldn't shake the idea that maybe he was wrong again. Maybe Beatrice was more than just this friend he exchanged mixtapes with.
The sudden recognition that he might be developing feelings for Beatrice was way too much for Wirt to take in and he tried to distract himself with an internet search on concussions. When he finally gathered what he needed, Wirt's panic had subsided enough that he felt he could talk again and Beatrice was just about done with her food. "Hey, I uh, was looking up head injuries on the internet and good news, you won't have to stay awake all night like I thought," he said, glancing up from his laptop.
Beatrice raised an eyebrow as she stuffed the last bit of pizza into her mouth. "Internet? Is that that thing you've been using over there as an excuse to ignore me?" she asked in between chews.
Wirt nervously laughed off her criticism of how he had been treating her and came back to sit down on the bed. "No, this is a laptop and it has a browser that can take me to the internet, because it's connected to my parents wifi and from the browser I can use a search engine …" Wirt paused, taking in Beatrice's dumbfounded expression. "Just er … this thing," he held up the laptop in his hands and shook it slightly for emphasis, "can answer any question I write on it."
"And you asked about my head injury? I have a head injury?"
"Well ..." His hand was shaking as he reached for the side of Beatrice's head, but Wirt didn't let it stop him from touching her. He had resolved not to let his awkwardness over his conflicted feelings for Beatrice hold him back. "Right here you have a bruise. I was worried that you'd have to stay awake all night, but the internet tells me I'll only have to wake you every two hours to see if you're okay."
"Does that mean you will have to stay up all night to do that for me?" Beatrice asked.
"It's not a big deal. I was planning on it anyway. You know, to avoid any unexpected visits from my parents. I wouldn't want to see my mom's reaction if she came in here and saw a girl in my uh, bed." Wirt knew his blush had returned at the mention of having a girl in his bed and also at having that girl be Beatrice, but he didn't hide his face this time. He was just going to have to deal with the unfortunate effects of being someone who wore his emotions so blatantly on the outside.
Beatrice didn't seem fazed and Wirt assumed she had probably become used to seeing him flustered. "And what happens in the morning? I know you said you didn't want to think about an after, but are you going to hide me up here until I get better?"
Wirt shook his head. There was sort of a haphazard plan formed inside his brain that really didn't involve anything other than asking Sara for help. He just hoped she would still talk to him. During winter break he had come up with so many excuses to explain why he couldn't hang out with her and their group of friends that he wondered if maybe she had finally given up on him. "I've actually been trying to work that one out," Wirt told Beatrice. "I'm going to ask Sara for help. You remember me telling you about her, right?"
There was a short break in their conversation, before Beatrice finally answered, "The girl you recited poetry about?" Wirt thought Beatrice was trying to tease him, but her words came out sounding harsh, like the thought of him writing poetry about a girl was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard of.
If only you knew I was writing poetry in my head about you just a little while ago.
"Well, uh yeah, she's my ex and also the only person over here that I've told about you."
"You mentioned me to Sara?" Beatrice sounded surprised and also pleased, but he thought she was trying to mute the latter emotion.
"I told her some things about you, but …" Wirt nervously wrung his hands. "Don't be mad, I didn't exactly tell her the truth. I may have said something about you being … Amish."
"Amish?"
Wirt did a quick internet search to show Beatrice the group of people he had lumped her in with and instead of getting mad she laughed. "Can I use this thing? It looks amazing … like a magic mirror."
"You're not upset about the Amish thing?" Wirt asked as she stole his laptop, not waiting for a yes or a no answer from him.
Beatrice glanced up at him and away from the laptop's screen. "Should I be?"
"I don't know. I thought you might be." Wirt shrugged.
"I guess even if you lied about who I was it's nice to know that you mentioned me at all." She smiled.
"There's one more thing though." Wirt gulped and it felt like he was swallowing a rock. Beatrice raised her eyebrows in curiosity, but he hesitated for a few seconds before answering and it was only the sigh of annoyance from Beatrice at how long he was taking to reply, that provoked him to admit, "I kinda, well … I told her we were dating."