Sequel to chapter 7, Needles and Pins, in Seirios Aster's Little Lion Man.

Fairytale

"Sleeping Beauty's in a foul mood, for shame! She says none for you dear prince, I'm tired today … I'd rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming …" ~Fairytale by Sara Bareilles

.

A week.

It had been a fucking week since he'd seen Regulus.

Sure, his friend had stopped by a couple of times to make sure he was still breathing, and that he wasn't trying to climb up the walls in order to see if the ceiling was less boring than the hospital bed he was confined to. And they had a superficial conversation or two about Reg going to Hogsmeade while Barty was a Prisoner of War, or Orion coming to Hogwarts to make sure his son wasn't dead, or about the buggering weather – basically they had talked about fuck-all in comparison to what they should have been on about. At this point Barty was almost too annoyed to care, because when it boiled right down to it, Regulus Black, his supposed best mate, was avoiding him.

Oh sure, he popped in every now and again, but he didn't come meaning to actually have a dialogue about anything important with Barty. He came to bitch about his newfound fangirls and notoriety, which he apparently hadn't recognized as either of those things as of yet. Good. He hoped the stalkers realized how much of an imbecile the sixth year was and cut it the ever-living fuck out.

Fuck.

Regulus had left the room shortly after their only even vaguely meaningful conversation, and ever since the blond had been used as a battering ram against the door of the Infirmary, it was the only time they had even approached the subject of what they really needed to talk about. And it had been completely one-sided. Hell, they wouldn't have even had that much if he hadn't stopped the idiot – Reg had been about to run before Barty could say anything to him. And Barty knew after he'd spoken that once again, something was wrong … in the way Regulus acted, and held himself … But the blond didn't know what it was, so he didn't know how he could possibly fix it … And honestly, he was starting to slowly but surely become sick of trying.

It was a selfish thing to think, to be sure, but he was only human; he had been friends with Regulus ever since first year at Hogwarts through a sort of coincidental happen-stance, and, well, long story short, Regulus had always been very good at being broken. A harsh way to put it, but it was the truth – more often than not, a lot of the time through his own doing, something was going wrong with the youngest son of the Most Noble and Nefarious House of Black (as his older brother Sirius often termed it, apparently). It wasn't that something was going wrong actively, per say. No; it was that Regulus thought something was going wrong, or something was happening that wasn't positive, and it was happening because he had done something or failed to do something. Or that, for whatever reason, the universe hinged on every action Regulus Black took, and adjusted itself accordingly.

A rather self-centered notion it was, when you got down to it.

But, Reg's supposed narcissism aside, he was also a pretty fragile person when it came right down to it, whether he put up a good face or not. The problem came when a fragile person thought that all of the things that were wrong in the world were his fault; at that point, as Barty had decided a million times, Regulus became depressed enough for several people all at once, and usually most of the time. And Barty, probably better than a lot of people, knew that the last thing that Regulus needed added to his plate was more bullshit, such as his friend's feelings for him …

However, Barty was getting tired of having to do acrobatics because he was afraid whatever he actually wanted to say or do would upset his mate. He was getting very tired.

And so , perhaps it was a combination of how fed up he was getting, mixed with the painkillers that were likely altering his perception of the situation to some degree, with a good helping of the fact that he was going so goddamned stir-crazy that he had contemplated digging his own eyes out with his fingernails for entertainment more than once, or perhaps it was something else … But either way, when Regulus came into the room, which he could again tell that it was his best mate simply by the distinctive way he walked across the nearly empty infirmary, Barty rolled his eyes and didn't move to face the dark haired sixth year Slytherin; he continued to stare at the wall.

"Guess who's a royal pain in the ass?" Well; he sounded chipper. But then again, he might've just sounded so pleased with life, the universe, and everything because of the stark contrast Barty was feeling as he brooded in this stupid bed, which he was hoping he could get out of soon. He missed the grayish not-light of the dungeons; at least that didn't wake him up at the crack of dawn so that he could get an early start on laying there with his thoughts all day and resenting Regulus for being such a motherfucking delicate, pansy-arsed coward.

"Can't imagine Reg; who?" he asked, the sigh evident in his almost bored tone of voice as he forced himself not to engage in conversation with his friend, even though he knew that somewhere, not so deep down, he was glad his friend had come to see him again. Alright; so he was a little angry. And a little bitter. And he was trying to give Regulus that impression by acting aloof - but dammit, Regulus had avoided him all fucking week when he knew Barty couldn't corner him and force him to talk, and he knew they needed to have a sodding conversation. It just irked him pretty badly that once again, something that might have even vaguely become emotionally engaging, or god forbid even distressing, and Reg had bailed on him. Again, he might add.

"My idiot brother," the youngest member of the Black family answered, seemingly completely unfazed by Barty's lack of enthusiasm, and with that grin. That stupid little grin; Barty wasn't even facing him and he knew exactly what his face looked like. Bringing up a hand, he put his fingers against his forehead; he hadn't had a particularly note-worthy headache since last week before he'd been stuck there, a combination of pain, painkillers, and a few sleeping draughts keeping him from really missing sleep, or thinking too much about pain in his head as opposed to pain elsewhere. The blonde knew that Reg was talking, and he couldn't give a shit less about what; the moron's voice nattering on was apparently enough to raise his rather traitorous spirits.

Barty, in a parallel to his father that he would never see, let alone acknowledge, was very stubborn; and he wanted to be mad at Regulus. And so, he remained on his side, facing the windows even though eh hated facing them with that ungodly bright afternoon sun coming through them. Madame Pomfrey had insisted on opening the horrid things every bleeding day, and Barty, used to living in the dungeons, was not adjusting well to the unwieldy amount of light pouring through them.

To be perfectly fair though, at the moment Regulus was sort of an outlet to a veritable waterfall of anxiety that the blond had been left alone to think about for the past seven days or so. Not only had Slughorn been in to see him and badger him about what had happened every single day, and not only that, but the headmaster, Albus Dumbledor himself, had paid him a visit. He hadn't told the man anything, but it would be a lie if he said he hadn't been tempted. But, here's the shocker; guess who hadn't set foot in the infirmary for any length of time during the entire week he'd been there? That's right – neither his mum nor his dad had come to see him. Even though Madame Opium had explained that she had owled them the day that he had gotten into the infirmary to let them know his status. Oh, his mum had owled him once – he had recognized her tiny, curly handwriting as soon as he had seen the address on the letter, and had explained why she couldn't come and see him.

At least she'd had the decency to explain herself; his father had probably forgotten he was even in school. That or he thought that this had been some sort of elaborate suicide attempt on his part to get out of explaining why he was doing so poorly in Potions. Yes – this was all a clever ruse gone slightly awry to cover up the fact that he was a complete slacker and failure at most areas of life. Because he was struggling with Potions. Yep; that had to be it – you caught him in his game. No one can get anything by you, Bartemius Crouch Sr.

Wow; was Regulus still talking? And he still hadn't figured out that Barty didn't want him there? It was like nudging at a particularly stupid stray crup (1) with your shoe – you felt bad actually kicking it, but you wanted it to sod off, so you tried to push it across the sidewalk to give it the hint that you wanted it to go away. And it just kept coming back and getting tangled up in your feet because it can't take a bleeding hint and it's going to fucking make you kick it halfway across the street so that it gets lost or hit by a car. Whatever, as long as the dumb thing leaves you alone?

"—r. Crouch? MR. CROUCH!" Barty jumped in the bed he was laying in, turning partially over so that he could see behind himself; oh – when had Madame Pomfrey gotten there? She was holding what looked to be a clipboard, and clearly had been attempting to get his attention for a while at least.

"Huh? Oh – yeah?" he asked, slightly disoriented and turning over to face her and Regulus, whom he pointedly did not look at. She sighed, exasperated, but the blond didn't look the least bit remorseful; honestly his expression was a little stony.

"I said, if you were paying attention, that I think you are fit to at least spend the rest of the weekend in your own bed, so long as you check back at least once during the day tomorrow," Madame Pomfrey said this almost curtly as she looked at him, and he blinked a few times, hazel eyes at first not understanding, but then realizing what this statement meant, and the subsequent implications, they grew wide.

"And, if Mr. Black would escort you back to the common room …?"

"No," he immediately answered, almost hastily. He could feel her frown – the response had come out before he'd had time to stop it really. To his surprise, Reg piped in before Barty could say anything.

"Don't worry Madame Pomfrey; I'll make sure he gets back in one piece," he heard his fellow Slytherin say as the blond managed to slide himself to the edge of the bed and stand up a little unsteadily. Cut him some slack – he hadn't been vertical in a full week. Feeling something catch his arm and hold him a little more steady, he resisted the urge to shake Reg off – it was fine. This would be fine. He just needed to get to the dormitory, get back into bed, and … Really, it was just a change of scenery, but it would be a welcome change – he was so sick of the infirmary …

Barty didn't say anything to Regulus the entire way back to the Slytherin dormitory, mostly managing to walk on his own two feet; hell, he wouldn't even know if Reg said anything, except for once when he had gotten grabbed shaken a little bit because he'd almost rather mechanically walked off the end of a staircase that was in mid-movement. He'd been called some sort of name, Merlin only knew what, though that was likely because he'd probably scared Reg half to death. You know, with the whole prospectively falling to his death and all.

The rest of the way back to the common room probably went mis-hap free, except that the fair haired Slytherin did notice a few wayward stares in their direction. Also a flock of girls, but apparently those now accompanied Regulus everywhere unless he chased them off. It appeared that a few of them were whispering quietly, though Barty couldn't make out what they were saying, and they eventually left off, or so he thought because there was some silence to be had. The only other thing of note that he noticed on their journey was that the password had been changed to "Pure Blood" before he ducked his head and ambled into the common room, heading for the stairs; he had had enough of this walking crap. What had made him want to leave the infirmary again?

"Lookit 'im; got his arse beat and doesn't even know by who!" Barty chose to ignore this rather staged whisper, hand on the railing of the stairs. He paused for a moment, fingers curling on the banister before he quickly started up the steps; it wasn't worth it. Any other time it would be worth it; to stop those idiot snickers with a Densaugeo.(2) It was likely he'd regret it later, since in Slytherin the only thing that mattered was your reputation, and the blond's was completely shot.

And he just didn't care.

He just wanted to go … Sleep the rest of his life away.

The End …?

1 – From Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, this is basically a magical version of a Jack Russell Terrier with a forked tail.

2 – the tooth-growing hex Draco cast on Hermione; not sure if I spelled it right and too lazy to look … xD