Death Slumber

The room was quiet, and empty. His family filtered in and out of course, to everyone's slight surprise, Blanche seemed to have taken the roll of keeping watch over her brother's body the most. The truth was their relationship had always seemed distance between the two - Roul had never made it a secret that he was not fond of the idea of having a little sister, and as thus never seemed to take to her the way that one might think they would.

Their mother was worried it had something to do with the fact that Blanche found him.

Brought to the hospital by Blanche a week before, the healers couldn't find anything wrong with the man. He was in perfect health besides the minor gash on his arm which they had quickly healed, and yet, no matter what they did, Roul Belanger would never wake up. It was as if "nobody was home". It was a concern that the healers didn't know what to do about.

In the end, they had come to the conclusion to simply, leave him be. He would either wake up, or he would not. And if he did not...

Well, that was up to the family.

Her fingers trembled only slightly as they brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, her position on the chair she'd pulled closer to the hospital bed was curled. Her blond hair cascaded down into her face slightly as she continued to look down at him, a small worried smile on her lips as blue grey eyes went from him to the book in her lap.

"It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone..." She read carefully, her voice steady and studious. She turned the page patiently, her other hand continued its playing with the hair of the man beside her.

Blanche slipped silently through the door into the darkness. Her expression was blank, as she looked at the woman who had take the chair she usually sat in. She was slowly getting use to the mixed emotions in her head - twin sets of reactions to the same thing.

Her own hesitation, weariness, and Roul's confused painful excitement. Blanche wanted to snark at the thought, but thankfully her own immediate thoughts seemed to do it for her.

Shut up.

Her lips twitched ever so slightly, Don't listen.

"Pirates, huh?" Slowly she settled herself on the bed beside her brother. Curling up at the space at the end. "He use to always want to be a pirate. Would always walk me off the plank. Almost drowned me once - Aubry had to get me out."

Please. You overreacted. We both knew you could swim, you just wanted to get me in trouble.

Rolling her eyes, she leaned back, glancing at the woman who had invited herself into the room.

"What are you doing here?"

Blanche!

Roul! Her expression was neutral, and she cocked her head to the side. Her brother's annoyance was only out weighted by his distraction by the girl.

Bonnie glanced up at the woman as she entered the room, her story telling stalling as she gazed upon the sister. Her legs shifted beneath her and she closed the book on her finger, a small smile her answer. "I figured he was a fan of treasure, so maybe reading about it would-" bring him back. Her calm facade faltered, and she looked back at the man, her fingers pausing as her gaze flickered over his sleeping expression. The silence from her was disconsolate, her expression slipped through her mask, gaze crestfallen.

"He was avoiding me." Her voice was soft, the admittance painful once she let herself say it. Once it was in the air, through her lips, she couldn't stop thinking it. What had she done? She had thought... She'd thought that maybe once they'd talked out the wrinkles, they'd be- closer. She hadn't expecting him to be quite so distant... "He- wasn't doing it on purpose, I don't think. But I'd go to find him and the way he spoke would be different than usual. He wouldn't send me away, but he wasn't all there, not really." She faltered again, looking away from Blanche and back to Roul. "I don't know why he was doing it, but I figured after- I figured he'd come get me when he was ready."

She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head slightly. "They said you found him. Do you know what happened?"

Stretching out her legs so the were resting just beside the unconscious man, she leaned her legs ever so slightly to the side. It was gentle and subtle but in the end it was still a kick, "If only it were that easy."

Will you stop doing that? If you leave a bruise I will make you sorry.

Blanche just rolled her eyes, a little smirk coming to her face at her own internal conversation. She sobered slightly as she watched the girl, Blanche cocked her head to the side slowly. There was an inkling beginning in her head that was hinting at to why her brother had been so taken with the girl.

In these areas, it seemed they quite possibly were identical.

"Roul was a child with his emotions. He didn't use them enough to know what to do with them. It's almost pathetic really." Just for the hell of it she kicked him again.

Oh, I'm the child? At least I don't fall in love with everyone that walks my way.

Her foot bent and kicked again, At least I don't miss out on my chance.

The more the two talked, the harder Blanche was finding it to keep the expressions from her second internal conversation off her face. It was part of the reason she was being so secluded of late. It was also a reason she spent so much time in the hospital - she felt less weird talking to the body, even if he was unconscious, than nothing at all.

Shaking her head, she let out a breath, looking at the body, "Mon Dieu, I wish I did." There was nothing more Blanche wanted to than to know what happened and to fix it.

Tell her I'm sorry.

It was sudden, her movement, enough that the other woman wouldn't really notice until it was too late. The shove was gentle enough, but it still gave enough force to shift the woman off the bed, the blond thief deftly taking her spot and raising an eyebrow at her position. "Didn't your mother ever teach you to keep your hands to yourself?"

Crossing her ankles, she laid back on the bed, stretching beside Rouley and turning to look at him. Her voice was guarded when next she spoke, the confusion evident. "You found him." She repeated. Her fingers seemed to have an unusual obsession with smoothing back his hair, even though it instantly sprang back to where it was. "Do you know what he was doing when this happened?"

Something almost like laughter rung in her head. Of course laughter wasn't exactly a sound a thought, an essences could make, but the amusement from the other being was so strong, that he might as well have been. Blanche let out a breath, rolled her shoulders and then pulled herself back to her original spot curling herself tightly at the end of the bed.

I see why you love her.

I do-

shut it Casanova.

"Have you met me, do I really look like the type that listened?"

Sighing she brought her knee up to her chest and rested her chin upon it. Watching the two she ignored the way the other present in her was completely transfixed with the touch. He longed for it, seeing it but not feeling it. Blanche was actually getting annoyed with the constant desire.

"Being his usual idiotic self. He should make potions more carefully next time."

you need to butt out next time.

Trust me. I will.

The blond didn't respond at first, instead curling into the man's side, hands resting on the inside of his arm. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she closed her eyes briefly. "Do you think he can hear me?" She asked softly, taking a soft breath through her nose. "What if he doesn't know I'm here?"

She kept her face impassive, though she pulled herself a bit closer as a thought wormed its way into her head. "What sort of potion?" She asked lightly, though her hold on the man beside her tightened just a bit.

Roul was getting suffocating in her head. It was more annoying than usual to have him there. His emotions were seeping into hers, and his confusion was annoying her to no end. Blanche had always been an emotional child - she felt what she felt and she acted upon it accordingly. All this pretending Roul was doing might have been fine and dandy for him - when he was in his own body - but now that she had to deal with it, Blanche was more than done with it.

She hoped that the growl she made at her brother went unnoticed. Gritting her teeth she took a breath and actually focused on the woman, listening to her words, and watching her actions. Her expression softened slightly. She did feel for everyone who was concerned for her brother, but she had no way to tell them that he was alright without feeling like they were going to believe that she was insane. Even with magic...

Well hearing voices was never good.

"He knows," she said softly, with such assurance, such authority that it couldn't be mistaken for anything but the truth. "He can hear you now. He's glad you're here, though he doesn't want you to worry. He also would never say any of that himself."

Rolling her eyes, she ignored the growl in her head, and instead went back to watching, her silence speaking more than words could. Working out her own emotions from her brothers was suddenly becoming more and more difficult. It was like he was filling up more space in her head - eclipsing herself. It was an unusual feeling, a frightening feeling.

Roul! She wanted him to stop but part of her wasn't sure if he even knew he was doing it.

"It was a -" her words cut of suddenly, chocking in her throat, making a frightfully unnatural sound. Eyes wide she swallowed and attempted to try again, "A f- h-I-" her words were stopping every time she tried. Nothing more than gargled syllables were coming out, and the harder she tried, the harder her attempts were shut down. Before long she was finding her entire throat closing in a manner that felt like her brain had entirely forgotten to breath.

Fine. Fine. Fine! Her lungs were struggling for air in a way that was becoming painful, and Roul still felt like he was taking up more than her head than she was. Attempting to calm down, fuel her emotions, she stubbornly, forced her way back to where she belonged in her head. Focusing on control, on her body and slowly but surely her brother slipped back to where he started, brooding even more than he had before.

Quiet for a long moment, she took a slow deep breath, even until she was completely sure she had control over such actions again.

"I can't say. I just... it was a very stupid potion; I don't think he was in his right mind - if the moron ever was." Rolling her eyes she appeared to be nothing more than a irritated sister, but on the inside she was processing things, and not liking how they were levelling out.

The fact that Roul could do something like that, take control for a bit if he really wanted to was an entirely frightening concept.

There was a small sound from Bonnie as she moved his hair away from his forehead again, watching it spring back with a resigned sort of helplessness. That was the thing with Roul. She could be gentle, try to meet him half way so that they would both better each other, but he always sprang back, resisted, and-

She liked him the way he was. She didn't want him to have to change for her. She was at least fourteen different people on a good day, surely she could find the one that made him happiest? Though she knew that was Clyde, and Clyde was the one thing she was starting to-

“Blanche?” The blond sat up suddenly, eyes wide as she moved closer to the other woman, reaching out a hand to take one of hers. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she watched her- Roul’s sister, trying to pick out what she was attempting to say. Slowly, her head canted to the side – a habit she’d probably picked up from Cai – and she examined her closely.

“He did something so you couldn’t tell me, didn’t he?” Something a lot like hurt flashed in the blue gray of her eyes, even as the idea spread through her. Roul obviously had been brewing some sort of potion, and his sister had been the only one to witness it. Therefore, if she couldn’t say, it only stood to reason that he’d made her do so before everything had gone wrong. Such spells existed, of course, that could be cast quickly and efficiently, but the truth of it was that most weren’t that exclusive to one person.

She just wished she knew what was going on.

Dropping Blanche’s hand, the blond turned back toward Roul, caressing his face tenderly before standing. “I’m going to the café. Want anything?” She asked, keeping her back to the both of them so they couldn’t gauge her expression.

Sitting where she was, Blanche was still slowly trying to catch her breath, she was still trying to relax her body, and not constantly wait for her brother to make a repeat performance. In the wake of her shock, anger was starting to seep into her being as well. She hadn't been able to breath, he had chocked her. Whether the disembodied man had meant to or not, that was the fact that was there.

You could have killed me - us really. Her angry thought shoved into all corners of her brain got no response. His presence felt weaker, almost as if he had no energy left to take up present, to make comments. That comforted Blanche only for the moment.

"No- or well, yes but... no," Blanche struggled for words, shrugging at the uselessness of them all. "I think it was him but he shouldn't have been- it didn't -"

Closing her eyes she took a deep breath. "Nothing makes sense any more."

Pulling her knees into her chest, making herself small on the edge of her brother's bed, she shook her head before realizing with her back turned, the other woman wouldn't be able to see her.

"No thank you." It was the most manners Blanche had exhibited in a while. Probably more than this friend of her brother's had ever seen - it might have been more than Roul had ever seen. "I'll just-just stay here."