Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
Challenges listed at the bottom.
Word Count: 672
To Lose A Twin (To Save A Brother)
"Come on, Georgie," Bill said, wrapping his arm around his brother to hold him upright. George weakly tried to push him away to no avail, and with little difficulty, Bill pulled him from the pub.
It was a grotty hole in the wall, and not somewhere that Bill ever thought he'd find any of his brothers, but that was before.
Before the battle.
Before George lost the other half of himself.
He Apparated the two of them to the outskirts of Shell Cottage, and paused, holding George as he puked all over the ground when they landed. It was a usual reaction to side along Apparition after alcohol, and one Bill now had the experience to be prepared for it.
He'd done this too often to not be.
He helped his brother inside and into the spare room, and used his wand to strip him down to his boxers and tucked the blankets around him.
George hadn't uttered a single word the entire time.
…
"Morning sunshine," Bill greeted, handing over the coffee he'd poured when he heard his brother on the stairs.
George merely glared at him, but he accepted the cup and slumped down at the kitchen table. Bill was momentarily thankful that Fleur was in France for the month, spending time with her family.
She would have been horrified at the state of George sitting at her kitchen table, looking like he was about to throw up all over the stained oak.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself, you know?"
George rolled his eyes. "Don't lecture me, Bill. Nobody asked you to come and get me. I didn't ask you to bring me here, did I?"
"George—"
"You don't get it! Nobody gets it!"
"You're right," Bill allowed, leaning on the kitchen counter. "I don't know what it's like to lose a twin, and nobody else in the family does either. But George… we lost a brother. Mum and Dad lost a son. You're not the only one hurting, and you're not alone."
George looked away guiltily.
"We're losing a second brother. Mum and Dad a second son. Do you really think this is what Fred would want for you?"
"Don't," George pleaded. "Bill. I can't. I can't."
"I don't know what it's like to lose a twin," Bill repeated. "But I know what it's like to lose a brother, and I don't want to go through it again. Fred loved you, George, more than anything or anyone in the world, he loved you. He wouldn't want… this."
Silence filled the kitchen for a long moment, and then the tears began to fall, and Bill felt a rush of relief. George hadn't cried at all to his knowledge. He hadn't cried at the funeral, or after, or any of the other nights Bill had picked him up from whatever awful pub he'd found to drown himself in.
"I don't know how to do this without him."
The words were soft, but they may as well have been shouted into the silence, they sounded so loud to Bill's ears. He put his own coffee down and approached his brother, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight.
"I don't know either," he whispered into George's hair. "But I'm here, and the others are waiting for you, and we'll all help. We're all still here, George, and we all love you. You're not alone."
George didn't reply. He quietly sobbed and quietly fell apart and Bill held him through it.
It wasn't fixed. It wasn't over.
But it was a breakthrough, and it was progress, no matter how small.
Bill would take that and be grateful for it, and he'd be there for George through it all.
For George and for Fred, and for their mother and father and the rest of their siblings, Bill would help build George into the man he would become without Fred.
And he'd do it because he'd lost his brother, and he'd do anything to make it so that he didn't lose another.
Written for:
Mini golf: hole 12. George Weasley
Murder mystery: who: Bill Weasley
Geek pride: supernatural: write about brothers
Game of life: experience