You Don't Care About Us
Bill Weasley would never be called a fool. But despite this, a haunting, jeering, symphony of hatred boiled and crashed in the back of his mind.
When he had been younger, everything had been in extremes for Bill. He was too thin, too hyper, too protective, too daring, too smart, too scared. And too goddamn obsessed. But no one, not even the object of his obsession, could ever know about that.
In the end, he'd sold out. He'd given up himself in order to put distance between their too-similar faces. He couldn't stand seeing those inquisitive, open, trusting eyes looking at him like he was the world, like he was everything that mattered. So he ran. He ran as far and as fast as he could. And he didn't stop until he got to Egypt, of all places. He supposed, that in an offhand way, he enjoyed his job. It kept him busy, alert, and it required all of his focus, and then some, just to stay alive from day to day. It left him sore and too tired at night to do more than stumble into his tent, down half a bottle of Odgen's and pass out.
Oddly, he thought about his brother more when he was drunk. He would remember that same face that once promised him all the love he could ever want, now hardened, jaded, angry, reckless. He would see the curious scars on Charlie's back and chest, and hear again the casual way Charlie spoke about his boyfriend, something hurt still lurking in his eyes when he looked at Bill. The challenging stares he would direct at his older brother, before turning away suddenly, too obviously defeated by things Bill feared he would never understand.
When he was sober, which wasn't all that often, he would wonder how it had happened. He'd always loved Charlie, and at some point, the brotherly affection that came so naturally to them both had changed to another kind of love, but he didn't know when, or why, just that the sight of muscular shoulders dusted with cinnamon freckles was enough to make his hear lurch and the deep pools of Charlie's eyes were far too easy to fall into.
Some part of him had been rational enough to reject Charlie's first, sweet kiss. That same part of him had also stubbornly refused his brother's naked skin as it slid against his own in the shower. But lately, as his Charlie sank deeper a pit of self-destructive patterns, he feared that he'd done the wrong thing. Maybe he should have kissed Charlie back. Maybe then he might still smile that old casual grin, the one that could bathe his whole body in warmth with a single look. Maybe then he wouldn't have so many scars marring otherwise perfect body, so many secrets burning behind accusing eyes.
He would have loved, more than anything, to play Prince Charming, but he knew that the fairytales were usually not about two brothers, Odgen's Fire Whiskey, and abusive boyfriends. Although they both had their share of dragons and curses, courtesy their respective jobs.
Oddly, he was not so sure it mattered anymore what people thought. He should have given up caring the moment he realized he was in love with his brother. Instead, he'd given up half a lifetime of happiness for 'what people thought', and it had done no one any good, least of all Charlie. So maybe it was time for some intervention of the storybook quality. Maybe he still had a chance to save his brother from the path he'd set him on, unwittingly, all those years ago.
Whatever the outcome, he was tired of being perfect, of holding himself to standards he had no desire to attain. When the only standard that had ever really been an issue was Charlie.
Bill was tired of denying himself the only chance for happiness he could have, all for a world that would never care about him, no matter how well he repressed his feelings, how perfect of a mask he spun around himself. The thing he had once considered his greatest condemnation had become his only hope for absolution. He would find Charlie, and he would give them both peace.