heartbreak warfare

Dean was uncharacteristically exhausted tonight. Work had been rough, sleep had been nonexistent, and maybe he hadn't caught enough caffeine throughout his breaks today. Whatever combination it was, he felt the exhaustion in his bones and it was dragging him down by now; he walked with shoulders slumped, his eyelids droopy, his feet a little heavier than usual.

He would've gone straight to bed after work if he hadn't promised himself to stop by Madam Puddifoot for some tea, since he'd run out weeks ago and never made time to get more. The sensible thing would be to scrap that idea and save it for another day, when he wasn't so tired, but before he knew it, there he was, heading towards the shop.

And maybe it would've been a better idea if he had gone home, because before he entered the shop, he spotted a familiar shape. There was something to be said -- something to be waxed poetical about, perhaps, if he was any more sentimental -- about how he could recognize Seamus even after all these years without seeing each other. It was right there, on the way he stood, on the way he adjusted his coat, on the way Dean's stomach seemed to drop at the sight of him, twisting with guilt and something else.

His best instincts told him to hide inside the store and avoid his ex-best-friend, almost-husband entirely, but fighting against that, he approached. Despite all of his anxieties and guilt about how things had ended between them, Seamus was still someone he missed having around. It was worth saying hello, at least. "Seamus," he greeted, approaching. "Didn't know you were around." That was silly to say. Why would he know anyway, if they hadn't talked in years? He cleared his throat. "Dropping in for a visit?"

Painted with Vermillion

As if Draco had seen a bed yet tonight – or this morning, whatever it was. He had been about snarl some comment of the sort, something tawdry and crass no doubt and more suited to his father’s bawdy sense of humor than his own, when the shift in Thomas’s tone between one sentence and the next caught his ear, followed by the even more jarring realization of what Dean was staring at.

Draco looked at his own hand dumbly for a solid two, maybe three seconds before the reality of the sight – and why it was an inappropriate one – sank-in and when it did, he chose perhaps the worst reaction possible: instead of laughing it off as something minor and innocent (although whether his tired brain would have been up to the task of concocting an innocent explanation for that much blood was far from guaranteed) he jerked the hand back out of sight behind him in a gesture that couldn’t have looked for guilty if he had been auditioning for a cell in Azkaban on purpose.

“I’m fine,” Draco snapped, which did nothing to help him, although he did manage to bite-back the urge to say, It’s not my blood at least – which would have been an utterly ruinous thing to say right now. His best chance of getting out of this without being arrested was undoubtedly to pretend that it was his blood; if only his wits had been less dulled by exhaustion. It was difficult to think of an explanation for how he might have injured himself when all he kept thinking about was how much he wished he were asleep right now.

No one sleeps peacefully in Azkaban, Draco reminded himself, which was a chilling enough thought to help him focus enough to say, “I must have caught my arm on something sharp – you know how Knockturn Alley is, full of inconsequential little hazards. It’s nothing to be concerned about,” he insisted, which might have been enough to put an end to the whole ordeal if he hadn’t chosen to try and stride forward imperiously, brushing past Thomas as haughtily as he might have done back when their positions in society had been very much reversed – a stride that turned into a stumble as his tired brain neglected to note the gap between the sidewalk and the cobblestones of the street; a stumble that Draco caught by instinctively grabbing for the nearest support: Dean Thomas’s shoulder, which was now smeared with the tell-tale crimson streaks as well.

Merlin’s teeth, why hadn’t he realized how much the blood had spurted on him where he’d been holding that vampire down as he drove in the stake?

Dean certainly expected that this had a plausible explanation, despite his own brain coming up short for it. There had to be multiple reasons why someone would have blood splattered up their arm like that, isn't it so? Reason that weren't specifically some kind of muggle-grade level of murder? Yes, certainly. Because Draco didn't look hurt, he didn't seem to be in any pain, and blood loss like that would certainly beg for some struggle.

And then, instead of offering any explanation, he just hid his arm back.

Dean would be more concerned about red flags and their nature if he wasn't still a bit distracted. He couldn't quite put a finger on the feeling -- it still sat there on the back of his throat, made his stomach lurch.

"Nonsense, Draco, you should head over to--" he started, intending to send Malfoy towards a healer, or perhaps any of the shops nearby that sold healing potions, at least. Again, he didn't seem pained, but that was a decent amount of blood, a wound like that called for a remedy. And then Draco was stumbling, reaching for him, and Dean's own arm reached out to catch him.

Blood on his shoulder. Smeared into it, a crimson vivid stain. He thought it had looked pretty dry when he saw it on Draco's hand, but now, up close, it still seemed to pulse with life. The smell of it alone made him feel dizzy, disoriented, he had to pry his eyes off from it. "Merlin, mate," he muttered under his breath, holding his companion by the elbow, still. This wasn't looking too good. For either of them, he supposed, now. Just two pals hanging out in an alleyway at five in the morning, sharing blood stains. "If this-- if it's your blood, we should-- you need to get help." Since when did he have such a stutter? His thoughts all seemed to be crashing together in his head, he couldn't stop smelling it. "What happened?" He was repeating himself, he knew this, but he wanted to start making sense of this encounter before he lost his mind.

It felt rare for Daphne to have a truly quiet moment. When she wasn’t working, she was working, and when she wasn’t working, she was with the children ⎯ whom she loved dearly, but could certainly be a handful. A cup of tea and a little slice of cheesecake had seemed like the perfect way to enjoy a few solid minutes of blissful solitude, but it seemed like fate ⎯ as it often does ⎯ had different plans. 

She turned around, and was immediately struck with a wave of familiarity. She knew his face from somewhere, though she couldn’t quite work out who he was. Truthfully, Daphne had always been terribly with faces. They all seemed to blend together in her memories, though she rarely forgot a name. Words she could always remember. 

“Infortunium Infelicitas?” She offered, as she glanced down at the coffee soaked papers. A curious frown tugged at her lips. “You’re having trouble with a cleaning spell?”

Daphne drew her wand, and muttered a soft tergeo. The coffee immediately drew into her wand, leaving the papers perfectly dry. It was a very simply spell; odd for a wizard to struggle with. 

Well, colour Dean double-embarrassed, both for not remembering a simple potion name, and for failing at such a simple spell -- more importantly, for being called out on both accounts. Not that the woman was anything but polite, but he still felt the shame of it anyway. He was a respectable adult with a respectable job to do, and here he was. Behaving like a clumsy teenager.

His issue with dissociating meant that he'd often run into days like this, when he felt off, his memory was bad, and everything felt strangely out of place. But even then, he'd always managed to deal with it better. Today, he just felt like giving up, calling it a day, and maybe hiding under covers like a little kid.

"Right. Yes, it's--... maybe I'll take my wand for a checkup. Thank you," he smiled at the woman, something sad and guilty, but a tug of his lips nonetheless. He doubted his wand was just miraculously broken or something, but he had no idea what was going on, either. "And my sincere apologies for bothering you."

Painted with Vermillion

LOCATION: Diagon Alley DATE: January 11, 2020 @deanthomxs​

At some point unnoticed to Draco the night had shifted from late to early, and there was early morning mist swirling across the cobblestones as he stumbled out onto the street. Exhaustion didn’t so much tug as his limbs as it had settled into his bones, cold and heavy. He blinked at the gray pre-dawn glow then scowled. He hadn’t realized it had taken that long to kill the bastard. He hoped Daphne wasn’t waiting up – hoped she’d managed to talk Astoria into going to sleep at a decent hour…

Lost in his thoughts and his weariness, Draco barely noticed the few other early-morning walkers that he passed. There weren’t many – Knockturn Alley was much busier at dusk than dawn – although as he stepped out of the narrow, dingy little lane into Diagon Alley proper their sparse numbers increased as shopkeepers and vendors bustled about, preparing for the day’s business or selling hot tea and pasties to their fellow daybreak workers. The tea was tempting, and Draco hesitated a moment staring at a cart – but the brief jolt of energy wasn’t worth it, he told himself; he intended to snatch a few hours of sleep after he got home, after all, and the hearty brew they peddled would make that hard. No, better to simply suffer the short walk to the Leaky Cauldron. He turned away–

Not realizing that someone else had crossed close in his distraction until he nearly stepped on them. Draco stumbled back, scowling in annoyance – a scowl that deepened as recognition put a name to the unpleasantly familiar face in front of him: Dean Thomas.

“Watch yourself, Thomas,” Draco snapped – advice that he might have done well to take himself. After all, no one in Knockturn Alley would look askance at a man with fresh blood spattered nearly up to the elbow, but Diagon Alley was less forgiving and the sun crept higher in the sky with every moment making it more and more likely that someone would see the red smear on his left hand and realize what it was.

Insomnia was one ugly bastard. That's not to say Dean wasn't used to it by now, he was. He was familiar with the sleepless nights spent stressing and worrying, but he'd been significantly better at dealing with them now, as an adult, than he used to be as a young kid with raging untreated PTSD.

Before, he used to toss and turn and work himself from one panic attack to the other until he finally caved and owled someone to come help -- usually Seamus, by that point, when they still talked. There wasn't an easy way out back then, there was only pushing through and surviving until the next morning. Nowadays, he had better ways of coping, or at least he liked to think so. Even if he still felt the urge to wallow in self-pity and perhaps owl an old friend, he knew better. So he walked it off.

Usually, giving up on sleep helped him deal with the stress better than forcing himself into bed. He rested as best as he could until it was an acceptable hour of the early, early morning, and then he took a stroll around, watched the sun rise, watched businesses start to open up for the day. It was nice to get the first brew of tea from the local Diagon Alley cafés -- or a coffee, if he was feeling particularly tired, which was often.

He didn't mean to almost run into someone, and he'd take the fault for it; he just had slower reflexes these days. Stumbling back, Dean recognised the snappy voice before he could even look up at Draco, or get his balance back. "Merlin, Malfoy, woke up on the wrong side of the bed?" It was said in a mumble, as he straightened his coat out and regained whatever was left of his dignity by not falling down.

Only then he properly looked up, and saw the stains of red.

The smell hit him only a moment later, something like iron, faint but still very much present. It seemed to sit in the back of Dean's throat, like a phantom itch. He cleared his throat to try to scratch it, to no avail, and did his best to ignore it in favour of dealing with the more pressing issue of blood on Malfoy's hands. "What happened?" He asked, his voice sounding alien to his own ears. "Draco, are you hurt?"

He'd never quite felt the need for sunglasses like this, but maybe he was getting old by now and his eyes were failing him. Maybe.

When he'd finally settled on a table -- inside, since he'd already found himself squinting and half-stumbling outside --, he'd managed to spill some of his ordered coffee onto his papers. Which wouldn't be much trouble; he knew the ridiculous, first-year-level spell to fix it.

Except his wand refused to cooperate. It spat out a spark, in some grand, dramatic temper tantrum, and it didn't let him perform the spell at all. He was this close to losing it.