#;lockdown

The door sounded once more and Avery groaned, pushing his chair out from behind him with more force than necessary. He wasn’t even sure if his wife was home, but what he did know was how irritated he was becoming with the increase in visitors this bloody travel ban was causing. Couldn’t a man get some bloody work done around his own home every once in a while without an uninvited guest or his brother trying to make a mess of literally everything? For Merlin’s sake...

Avery made his way to the heavy doors, swinging it open and trying to ease the irritation from his features when he was met with a familiar face. 

“Flint?”

Vegas wasn’t quite sure how she had gotten herself into this mess...

Well actually, she knew exactly how she had gotten herself into this mess. Her coworkers were always teasing her about needing to get out more, and besides the fact that she had been born with some innate inability to tell anyone no, she also thought it might actually be good for her most recent bout of fear and paranoia to try and go out with people she trusted and try to just relax. However, relaxing seemed to be the exact opposite of what the universe had decided for her. 

She had been quietly nursing her daisyroot draught at the bar, watching the night’s live performer as she swayed merrily in her chair when she was accosted by a rather bold young man who had clearly had too many firewhiskeys. He wasn’t bold in the charming way like that foreigner who liked to call himself Big D, either. If she weren’t already so painfully awkward on her own, she might have come up with an appropriate way to dissuade him from pursuing the conversation further. However, she wasn’t exactly accustomed to being hit on (and in so forward a manner!), and Vegas Adelaide happened to be an absolutely terrible liar. She pulled her arms closer to her center as he stepped further into her personal space. 

As if it weren’t bad enough she was claustrophobic and in a crowded bar on live music night, now she was stuck in the middle of a rather uncomfortable conversation with a stranger all but breathing down her neck. Yeah, not exactly her idea of relaxing...

Roxanne’s shoulder all but skidded across the dingy floor as she was tossed rather unceremoniously into the dungeon cell. The shouting that had bounced across hallway after hallway on the long haul down only seemed to grow more fervent as she pushed herself back to her feet, hands gripping fiercely to the cell bars.

“What kind of idiots are left running this show, anyway? Sure, sure -- throw the bloody one who found him in here while the crazed lunatic is still at fuckin’ large! Real fuckin’ swell job you’ve all done! Merlin forbid we suspect the Minister’s son -- no fucking wonder nothing ever gets bloody done around here!”

“No, no, no, no, no, no!”

Roxanne kicked her leg forward, sending the spare seat in her office flying into the wall. Her hands trembled, a telltale sign of the impending shitstorm that was to come. She paced the room, chest heaving as she attempted to stave off the breakdown ripping at the seams of her sanity.

Who the fuck did they think they were? Tearing her from Julian’s bedside because she was too volatile? She was the one who bloody found him -- would she have been screaming bloody murder if she had fucking been the murderer! And they had already interviewed her, for Merlin’s sake!

Were they really going to leave Julian to wake up alone? Because he would wake up. He would wake up, confused, and there would be no one there that he trusts to fill him in because everyone was being left in the bloody dark about his recovery. He would want Roxanne there, right? He trusted Roxanne -- stupid fights be damned. Sure, McGonagall would be there; the woman was practically his mother...

But Julian would want Roxanne there... right? Because if Julian never woke up... if Julian never recovered, never remembered who it was who held pressure to his chest to keep him from bleeding out on the floor, never wondered where she might be... 

Then she would never get to apologize. She would never get to apologize for being such a royal fucking bitch during their last interaction and telling him what a horrible, miserable friend he was when she -- when all she ever wanted him to know was that --

“Fuck! Mother of -- dragon fucking -- Merlin’s -- twat -- fucking -- FUCK!”

For once in her bloody life, Roxanne found herself at a loss for curse words. Her gasps reaching a crescendo, she found herself barely able to keep herself standing. Grasping for the desk, she felt herself sink to the floor, her lungs filling in a harsh start-stop that she couldn’t quite seem to regulate. Feeling dizzy, angry, afraid -- she let her head sink between her hands, as if doing so might help her hold apart the aching pieces of herself that couldn’t make sense of the situation.