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「ςecilia → ℎooke」 ([info]cecilias) wrote in [info]valesco,
@ 2013-02-15 20:13:00


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Entry tags:cael gray, cecilia hooke

Cael!
This was quite out of her sphere of comfort.

To be fair, since coming to live with a certain halfblood, pretty much every single part of life had been out of Cecilia Hooke's sphere of comfort, but this--this was going a whole other step further. For although she--if she did say so herself--had become quite skilled in the meanial tasks of cooking, cleaning and generally playing house without the benefit of servants to order around, what she had never done was take care of a sick person.

Specifically, a sick boyfriend. As in, the type of person who was sick and one could not simply ignore because they may or may not be offended at one's total lack of compassion in their time of need, which could or could not cause a fair stumbling point in one's relationship with that person which was one's only way of surviving as one's parents did not currently speak to them and they had nowhere else to live and no personal income.

Yes, that was about how the situation went. Except---well, of course Cecilia wanted to help him, and of course she cared, but it was so... It was just that she didn't know what she was supposed to do. Growing up, it had never been her parent's problem when she or Nick or Addy had gotten sick, it was always the house elves. Beyond that, all she knew how to do was sit in her own bedroom--which she hadn't used for over a year--and continue to feel useless while Cael was in their bedroom half-dying. She had been desperate.

So maybe she had hired a house elf.

Honestly speaking, Cecilia did not know how he would feel about this development, but she did know one thing for certain: it was definitely not something that she was going to bring up while walking into the bedroom with a tray of bread, hot soup and cup of tea that she had certainly not made on her own. She did hope, though, that he was just out of it enough to not realize the overt pretentiousness of the way it had all been laid out and garnished. Heavens, she hadn't even known halfbloods owned butter knives--

"Hey," she greeted him quietly, setting the food down on the nightstand. "Doing any better this afternoon?"



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[info]winsome_wizard
2013-02-15 12:10 pm UTC (link)
Cael honestly could not remember the last time he had felt so miserable. He had the flu once when he was younger, but at this point that felt like nothing more than a minor cold in comparison to what he was going through. On top of feeling physically unwell, he also felt a pang of guilt due to the fact that he knew that Cecilia wasn’t used to having to take care of anyone. For most of her life she hadn’t even needed to take care of herself because she had other people doing that for her. She had her parents who gave her anything she ever wanted and/or needed, but now that she didn’t have them, she had no choice but to learn how to fend for herself. Of course she had him to help her out (when she needed him), but right now he was barely capable of standing. This was the first time he had to completely depend on her, and he imagined she was just as terrified at the concept as he was.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, because he did, completely…but he was pretty sure she had let a plant die within a week the last time he had to go on a business trip. He just hoped she didn’t get too overwhelmed taking care of another person who had a constant fever and spent more time writhing in bed than anything else for the last couple of days.

Cael was currently curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed that was usually shared with Cecilia, though the aforementioned writhing and sweating kind of made it impossible for her to be close to him. He also didn’t want her catching whatever the hell it was he had gotten sick with, and was certain that in his current state, she had no desire to be near to him anyway. Not that he could blame her. He probably radiated more heat than a furnace these days. When he heard her voice from the doorway, he lifted his head as much as he could, one blue eye opening to try and focus on her. He dropped his head back down to the pillow with a groan, a non-verbal way of answering her question.

“I’ll be ready to run a marathon any day now…”

Even in his weakened condition, he hadn’t completely lost his sense of humor. He’d probably go completely crazy if he kept whining about how miserable he felt. Wasn’t like that’d help anything anyway. He lifted a hand to rake his fingers back through his hair, which was sweat soaked than it had been a few hours ago. He watched her as she set down the tray beside the bed, letting out a light sigh before he tried to push himself up so he was resting his back against the board of the bed, wincing as he did so due to the body aches. He coughed a little into the crook of his elbow before he looked over at the tray. He definitely would have made note of how it had been presented to him while he wasn’t delirious, so he didn’t make a comment about it. Instead he just looked over at her.

“How are you holding up…?”

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[info]cecilias
2013-02-15 12:38 pm UTC (link)
"Cael Macklin Gray, that is perhaps the stupidest question I've ever heard issue from that mouth of yours."

Cecilia appeared stern, even as she rather delicately lowered herself down upon the very edge of the bed, sitting as far onto it as she ever intended to get until the day when it had been thoroughly disinfected. As much as she missed this bed--higher thread count sheets and all--, there would not be enough galleons in the world to convince her to properly sit upon it until the plague had been cleared out.

Perhaps it didn't even matter, given that she was already sick, but her case was so mild that she had not even bothered to mention it to Cael. The cough had come first, and then the fever, but beyond that there was really nothing that she was dealing with that she could not handle on her own. It was so mild, in fact, that she couldn't even be entirely sure that they had contracted the same thing, and one look at him in this state told her that if it wasn't the same, then she wanted no part of chancing catching it.

That did, unfortunately, mean that she shouldn't have been in the room at all. But Cecilia could not bring herself to go that far--she wanted to be around him, and she wanted to help him. She just had to be somewhat... prudent.

Laying a hand on his leg from over the covers, she frowned at him, but just barely. It was hard to stay mad at someone who looked like they had gone to hell and back several times. "Now, I'm only going to say this once--and I can't believe that I'm saying it at all--" she began, "But I am the least important person in this house at the moment. So if you ask me how I'm holding up again, I'll have to owl St. Mungo's and tell them that you're having delusions again." Now she really did crack a smile, before nodding to the bedstand to draw his attention back to the food.

"I know you don't have much of an appetite, but you need to eat something."

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[info]winsome_wizard
2013-02-20 11:46 pm UTC (link)
Cael managed to snort at the words that came as a reply to his innocent question, and he couldn’t even hold back the smirk that came from her admitting that she was the least important person in the house. He even snickered a little, though it was short lived and turned into another fit of coughs before he was able to come to his senses again. “I could have sworn I just heard you say that I’m more important than you are right now. Maybe you should call Mungo’s.” He teased her, though it definitely meant a lot to hear her say it. Cecilia wasn’t one of those people who put many people before herself – it was just how she had been raised, so he couldn’t always hold it against her when she was selfish; that didn’t mean he didn’t call her out on it on occasion – so for her to openly say that she was not her top priority was a big deal to him.

When she told him he had to eat something, he turned his head towards where she had placed the food, getting a head rush because of how quickly he had turned. He placed one of his hands to the side of his head, groaning a little before it dropped down so he could reach for the bread, not really feeling up to eating anything hot since he felt like he was a million degrees.

“But seriously, maybe I do need to be admitted until whatever the hell this is passes. I’m so out of it I could have sworn I saw a house elf skittering around my room before.” He sighed a little. “I must be losing my damn mind.”

He was distracted as he spoke, working on picking away some of the crust of the bread in order to pop it into his mouth, not focused on the look Cecilia was giving him as he spoke about the house elf he knew had to be a hallucination if it was in his house.

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[info]cecilias
2013-02-21 06:20 am UTC (link)
How ironic. She had just been opening her mouth to make a comment about how, if he didn't want the sentiment withdrawn, he had better stop revisiting her selfless admission and move onto something else. Little had she known that something else was the number one thing that she wanted to avoid--something that he should not have even known about.

Oh, she would have that house elf's head, Cecilia thought as the color left her face. Her left hand, just out of Cael's view, clenched as if she had a wrinkly, grey little neck there to wring in punishment for its indiscretion. For the love of--she had forbidden that thing from coming into this room, or even the top story of the house. Why in the world had it thought that it had a right to disobey her?

The world had truly gone to hell since the time that the Dark Lord had been in power, that was for sure. House elves would have never dared have so much gall just a few years ago, when everyone knew their place and--

Quite suddenly, it struck Cecilia that she was sitting in bed with a halfblood even as these old thoughts filled her head. That she was dating a halfblood, and living in a house with no servants, none of her pretty things, and no pureblood elitist family... because she had forsaken them all. For a man, whom she was doing her best to care for and prevent from dying, despite that he did not 'know his place.'

Well. Alright, so maybe she could settle for just strongly berating the house elf for its lack of obedience. Just this once.

Realizing that she had not spoken for a rather uncomfortable stretch of time, Cecilia attempted to force a smile, and gave Cael a good-humored laugh. "That's a hell of a delusion," she answered, just a hint too nervously. Her eyes focused in on the bread that he was picking apart, unable to watch his face for fear that his eyes would draw out her feeble lie. "Did it have a name, too?"

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[info]winsome_wizard
2013-02-21 04:01 pm UTC (link)
Cael was too busy meticulously picking away the crust of his bread to notice that his girlfriend had been quiet for too long. What he did notice was the way she had suddenly become a shade paler when his attention was back on her, and how her eyes wouldn’t meet his when she finally found her words. He was also lucid enough to know that the smile she was giving him was no where near genuine.

“Did what have a name? My fever-enduced house elf mirage?” His eyes remained on her, even though she still wasn’t looking at him. He suddenly stopped picking at his bread, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he watched her.

“You’re acting squirrely – moreso than usual.”

Since she had moved in with him her behavior had been a little off – it took some getting used to, living a lifestyle that was so different than what she had been accostumed to. He was used to coming home and seeing her look out of place, or overwhelmed, but now she just looked nervous.

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[info]cecilias
2013-02-22 10:05 am UTC (link)
"I am not--squirrely," Cecilia immediately bit back with a huff, pouting in annoyance at his choice of words. He said that about her a lot, and he knew she didn't particularly enjoy being called such a thing. Whether it was true or not, she couldn't help if she often felt quite overtaken by this whole... living like a commoner thing. It certainly wasn't helping anyone to point it out to her constantly as he did. Not to say that what Cael had was particularly low-class, but when you had grown up in a manor and never had to even think about money beyond knowing that you had more than enough for several lifetimes, this was a bit different.

One thing his comment had done, however, was cause her to forget herself long enough to finally look at him full-on, so caught up in her defense of her character that the whole house elf issue had gone by the wayside for a second. Maybe this would be a good time to keep on this train of conversation, and stop talking about stupid, wrinkly little grey blobs of impertinence.

"You know," she began, pointedly smoothing out her skirt before crossing her arms over her chest, "I don't have to sit here and take this kind of abuse. I could always just go back to my room and leave you to die, if you like."

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[info]winsome_wizard
2013-02-22 09:30 pm UTC (link)
He couldn’t help but find it just a little bit funny whenever she had one of her little fits, usually because he had said something to her that no one had ever dared say to her before, because of who her family was, and who her friends were. They were the type who would have someone’s head (quite possibly in a literal sense) for someone like him saying anything they would consider ‘inappropriate’ to a pureblood. Sometimes just saying ‘hello’ to someone who was pureblooded would earn him a nasty remark if they were aware of his own bloodline. So he always had to keep things in perspective – yeah, she sometimes acted all high and mighty, but at least she wasn’t putting a hex on him whenever he said something that might have rubbed her the wrong way.

At her idle threat of leaving him to die, Cael responded with a weak smirk, popping another piece of crust into his mouth.

“Maybe if I concentrate real hard next time I see that house elf, he’ll become corporeal and you wouldn't have to deal with the burden.”

He spoke in good humor, but then he heard a crash that seemed to have come downstairs…a crash that was followed by a high pitched squeak that made him turn to look at her, his expression clearly needing her to confirm the unspoken question of ‘you heard that too, right?’. It was one thing to be seeing things, but hearing things around the house was an entirely different kind of crazy. He could not be going crazy.

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[info]cecilias
2013-02-22 10:17 pm UTC (link)
For the love of all things holy--

Before she had realized what she was even doing, Cecilia's hand smacked the bed and she cursed, not-so-under-her-breath, as her eyes shot to the doorway. At that point, it wasn't even over him figuring it out. She was just furious with that stupid, useless, indiscreet, disgusting creature that apparently had a hard time doing anything right. Her parents' house elves had never been like this, nor any of her friends', and if they were, they most certainly had been gotten rid of post haste. Given that she was not about to get her hands dirty, that was not something that Cecilia was willing to do, so why in heaven's name had she gotten stuck with the only house elf in the entire world that she would need to do it to?

It was just about her luck, wasn't it?

Just about her luck too that now she had a curious, and undoubtedly suspicious Cael watching her, probably knowing exactly what she was going to say but hoping it wasn't true because halfbloods didn't get house elves, they thought it was pretentious and sometimes even cruel and---okay, she didn't know how he felt about them, but there had been a reason why she hadn't told him about it...

Groaning, she pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, wishing this problem away. Then again, she had made some worse admissions in her lifetime, to scarier people than her current boyfriend. She should just---

"Okay, look, I got a house elf," she sighed, eyes still closed as if this all gave her a monstrous headache. Actually, life with a very sick person sort of did--that's why she'd gotten it in the first place. "Whatever. I was going to get rid of it when you got better."

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