Chapter 14 – Boiling
Wow long time no computie! Here's the next installment, if it's crap then tell me...nicely please lol
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"Charlie!" Juliet sighed "You can't just hit it and expect it to work!"
"Well nothing else seems to be!" he grumbled, thumping the kettle again "I've done everything you said, filled it and flicked the switch and nothing"
"It's not plugged in" she pointed out carefully "Muggle appliances need electricity to work, and they need to be plugged into a power source to get that power"
"Well it's easy when you've grown up with it!" he growled "Not so much when you haven't, why is it all so damn complicated?"
"It's not" she said quietly "You just don't listen"
"Well thanks!" he replied with more than a touch of sarcasm "All I wanted was to be able to make a cup of tea while you go off to work, you know all by my self and instead I get a lecture" swiping the worktop with his arm he swept the contents onto the floor and stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door for effect.
Juliet looked at the mess around her, Charlie had managed to clear the entire worktop, the floor was littered with pieces of china, sugar, coffee and tea bags mixed with the water from the kettle and the innards of the appliances he had destroyed with his temper. She sighed and sunk to her knees and began to clear the mess up by hand. Her wand sat in her robe pocket but she tried not to use it in Charlies presence, felt that might be a bit like rubbing salt in the wound.
Juliet looked up as the kitchen door opened slowly, her heart skipped a beat as it always did when she saw him but something else shadowed the emotion – apprehension, she looked away again, continuing to clear up the mess.
"Let me do that" he offered
"It's alright" she said without making eye contact "I'll do it"
For some reason Charlie felt the anger well inside him again, had he stopped to analyse it he might have realised that it was borne of frustration. He had coped well with no magic initially, however having Juliet have to do most tasks for him and working all hours to keep him was starting to take it's toll. Charlie was a proud man.
"Like you have to do everything I suppose" he bitched "Work, cook, clean. Because your useless boyfriend can't do anything!"
Juliet stayed with her head bowed for a long moment, she had taken these outbursts from Charlie in her stride in the last couple of weeks. It hadn't taken him long to get really angry with his predicament and he had started taking it out on her. She had tried helping him, leaving him, talking to him and the end result was always the same. He diverted her attention from his behavior by seducing her into bed, thus he was forgiven. But she had really started to resent him for the way he was treating her. She wondered if she had made the right decision at all. She had fallen hard for Charlie, yet this wasn't the Charlie she knew.
Slowly Juliet stood up and faced him, Charlie felt a flash of something like the old desire he had felt for her when they had met, instead of the resentment and anger he usually felt these days. Something in her face reminded him of that first night they had met and the way she had made him feel then. In an instant he realised what he must be doing to her, how he was destroying the only thing he had left.
"I'm sorry" he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender "Juliet, babe I'm so sorry, I've been awful, I'll stop..." he tailed off his eyes opening wide with shock as she withdrew her wand from her inside pocket.
"Oh I know you're sorry Charlie" she said in a quiet and dangerous voice "You have been an insufferable moron for the past three weeks, then thinking that if you take me to bed I'll forget all about it and forgive you" she glared straight at him "But I've had enough of nannying you" she whizzed her wand around the kitchen, everything instantly returning to it's rightful place.
"I'm sick of not using magic around you in case you get upset, I'm sick of doing 14 hour shifts and coming home to a mess and a strop" she paused for breath, and to give Charlie a chance to speak, which he didn't.
"So you can either move back to your mother or shape up and sort yourself out, because quite frankly I've had enough"
"Juliet..." Charlie seemed genuinely at a loss for words "I...I"
"I don't care anymore" Juliet shrugged "How long did you think I was going to put up with your crap?" she asked "I thought I loved you, I thought you loved me but it seems that we were deluded" her eyes had taken a cold hue, Charlie felt terrified and elated at the same time "I have become little more than your housekeeper with benefits" she stated "Which have not been so fantastic of late either, you have become selfish and ignorant in that department too"
She didn't back off as he approached her, but stood her ground, fury written all over her face.
"I don't love you" he said, his blue eyes sparkling inches from her own "I'm in love with you. I've walked all over you these past few weeks and you have let me, I have treated you badly and you have put up with it. Thinking back far more than I would ever have expected you to, but I guess it all comes down to this, I love you, you have no idea how much when you stand there like that, angry with me. But do you love me? Enough to have put up with all my shit, and called me on it, and now come out the other side? Do you want to fight for this? Because I do, with or without magic"
"So you think you can just come along with a spiel like that and that'll be sufficient? That I'll roll over and absolve you of all blame again ?" she said "That I'll come and scratch your itch because you are angry and sex, bad sex at that, is the only way you can feel better? Well no Charlie, it was fun, at first but being your whipping boy is debilitating and humiliating"
"Ah now there she is" Charlie advanced on her, pinning her against the worktop with his body "The woman who ties me in knots with words, the fiery woman who takes no shit, the woman I fell in love with"
He was so close that she could feel his breath gently ruffling her hair, despite her hurt and anger at him she felt a thrill of anticipation which increased as he leaned closer, brushing her ear with his lips as he spoke.
"But I'm not going to tell you anymore" he whispered "You tell me actions speak louder than words" he chuckled as she gasped when he pressed his body against hers "See what all those fancy words have done to me?" he demanded "This is what you used to do to me all the time, how you made me feel, and I've ruined it, but I'm going to put it right" he kissed her ear briefly "If you still want me to"
"Yes" she whispered back, turning her head to kiss him, but he pulled away sharply.
"Good" he said "Go and have a bath, do whatever"
"Charlie?" Juliet was confused, his recent mood changes were giving her whiplash, angry and resentful to sorry and remorseful was usual but this was different.
"Just do something for me first?" he asked
"Of course" Juliet was deeply confused, and now unsure of what had happened between them.
"Floo my mum, tell her I need to see her now"
"Charlie...why?" fear filled Juliet now that he was going to leave, that he'd just humiliated her for the sake of it.
"Let me worry about that" he said, his face closed "I just need an hour or so"
"You're not going to...?" she stammered all anger gone now.
"Please" he said "Just do as I ask, make yourself scarce for a few hours"
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