"Counting Sheep" Susan/Seamus 4/13

[thanfiction.livejournal.com]

Title: Counting Sheep
Pairing: Susan/Seamus
Prompt: Only So Many
Rating: PG-13 (brief language)
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: Certain days can be hard when you've lost someone you love...but the nights can be even harder. 
Author's Notes: Set in the DAYDverse, uses the canon of Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness and the sequel novel, Sluagh. Will not make sense without them. Both stories, as well as the rest of the 'verse, can be found here
Link to Prompt Table: On my LJ, here

OOO

 

Cotton.  Linen.  Leather.  Silk, if he could afford it.  Muggle synthetics, even.  But not wool.  Seamus did not even bother to restrain the groan that seeped from his lips as he slid stiffly down the wall inside the front door of the farmhouse, trying in vain to fumble loose the caked and frozen laces of his boots.  Once he was a free man, he would never wear wool again.  Just to spite the little buggers. 

As the summer had passed, he had foolishly started to become almost fond of the animals that filled the hills, even feeling excited when some of the skittish Demiguise began to be visible in his presence, but right now, it was a very good thing that he had seen none of them and been under supervision while with the sheep.  There would have been mutton. 

Oh, he knew perfectly well that the fault did not stand with the animals themselves, but they were a far more convenient target than the intangible forces of weather.  An unseasonably early blizzard had swept the Loch, and Seamus, along with every other able-bodied man available, had been working around the clock desperately for…how long now?  He didn’t actually know.  At least two nights since he’d slept, and that had been only a few hours, still with his coat on.  He was indescribably filthy from head to toe, he knew that he must reek of mud and manure and who knew what else, and oh, mother of mercy, he was sore in places and ways that even Cuchulainn’s brutal warrior’s training had never managed to find. 

He would have gladly accepted another ten, twenty, even a life’s sentence in return for a hot bath and a warm bed – preferably with uninterrupted sleep for at least three days or so – but right now, he couldn’t even get his boots off.  Seamus stared at them, fully aware that he was capable of enough magic even without a wand to manage it if he called on some of the Gaelic spells he had learned, but even that seemed like effort.  Effort took, well, effort.  Maybe sleeping right here would be fine, oh yes…the wall wasn’t really that hard….

“Mr. Finnigan?  Are ye all right, there?”  Fiona’s voice startled him back from what had actually come quite close to the edge of sleep, and he blinked rapidly, staring up at her concerned face as if he’d never seen her before in his life.

He had intended to try and brush it off, assure her that he was fine, just resting his eyes, but as had so often been the case throughout his life, what came out of his mouth was the unvarnished truth.  “I  bloody hate sheep.” 

“Poor dear,” she smiled gently, waving her wand as she knelt to untie the stubborn laces and slip his boots easily from his feet.  The thickly knit socks beneath were equally crusted, and they retained the shape of the boots down to the lines of stitching in the leather, making him wince at the sight.  Whenever his feet warmed up enough to feel, it probably wouldn’t be good.  “Duncan says ye worked as hard as any two of his.  Up t’yer eyes tae muckle aud drifts and nae a complaint.”

“No problem, it weren’t,” Seamus said dryly, then raised one hand heavily to motion at her wand.  “Now would a darlin’ ya be and just kill me now, afore the numbness wears full off?”

Fiona chuckled, but there was something else in her expression, a worry beneath the woman’s own exhaustion that prickled through the increasing ache.  “Would ye forgive if I asked one more thing of ye by the first?”    

He sighed, looking forlornly at the boots.  “More sheep?”

“Susan.” 

Seamus sat abruptly fully upright, shaking his head harshly as everything else fell away in sudden worry at the somber way she had said his friend’s name.  “She all right?  It ain’t Cecily, is –“

“Oh, the wee lassie’s fine,” Fiona said quickly.  “At the Smiths, actually.  Zach sent an owl yesterday saying his bairns’d taken to Dragon Pox, and he’s having a party of a kind tae spread it while they’re young.  He’s even said he’ll keep her the week so it won’t spread tae the flocks.” 

“Then…?”

“She’s been up long’s ye, we’ve been doing our part too, but now she’s gone tae the office an’ burying herself in the papers ‘stead of the rest she needs, and I thought ye might be able…” She took a deep breath, and there was an almost shameful helplessness in her soft blue-gray eyes.  “It was when she took ken of the calendar…Ernie’s birthday come two hours ago.”

Nodding in dark understanding, Seamus swore under his breath as he accepted her hand to stand again, wincing involuntarily as more muscles than he knew he had moaned their protest at being called to movement.  But he pushed it aside, his jaw set in determination.  “Thanks for tellin’ me, Fiona, I’ll try to talk some sense to her.” 

“Just don’t be too hard with her,” she advised gently.  “Always a bad day, it’s been for us all.”

He thought of the half-dozen similar dark anniversaries that marked his own private calendar and smiled mirthlessly.  “I wish I didn’t understand.” 

OOO

She was at the desk in the study, bowed over the tall heaps of parchment with a quill in hand, still dressed in her own work-stained robes, her hair escaping in limp wisps from its long plait to hang around her pale, drawn face.  He watched her a moment, then leaned against the doorframe casually, allowing the weariness to show clearly in his voice as he called across the dimly candlelit room.  “Now if you’re half’s beat as I, what on the green earth could be so important’s to have ya anywhere but flat abed?”

Susan never looked up, the quill still moving rapidly between inkwell and parchment.  “I’m so behind…it’s really unforgivable.  I’ve just got to get these letters out with the morning owls…. Poor Sinead, did you know she lost the baby?  They’ve had her in St. Mungos for months now, but the hormone shifts were too much.  It was all deformed, and now she’s decided that she doesn’t want to go through that again, that she just wants to adopt, but none of the agencies are willing to touch a single mother with partial Lycanthropy, and after losing Felton this spring –“

He cut in, interrupting the litany kindly, but firmly.  “Susan….”

“This is what it’s for, Seamus;” Now she did look up, her dark eyes blazing with a manic ferocity.  “Helping people when they’re getting stonewalled, when they can’t afford to stand up for themselves, and Sinead –“

“Will still be there tomorrow night, which is more can be said for ya if ya keep pushin’ yourself like this.”  He crossed the room to her, slipping the quill from her fingers and dropping it into the inkwell.  Up close, he could see just how pale she was, how dark the circles were beneath her eyes, and the source of Fiona’s worry was obvious.  “Ya look like Death’s cold breakfast.  Only so many hours a body can go’t a stretch.  How long ya plan be at it?”

“As long as it takes,” She retorted defiantly. 

“Or until ya collapse?”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

He chuckled despite himself, propping an elbow against the back of the tall desk.  “Heard that enough times comin’ out me own mouth.  Don’t need be tellin’ me it don’t take bein’ half-Troll t’have a will o’ steel, but I also know how far’t can see ya gone afore it finally can’t take no more.”

Susan crossed her arms, glaring at him in undeterred suspicion.  “So why aren’t you resting?”

“Because I’m worried o’er me friend.”

“That’s sweet of you,” she smiled tiredly, then reached for the quill again.  “But I really do need to do this.  It’s just…”

Again he took it from her, this time pushing the inkwell to the farthest corner of the desk as he held her eyes steadily with his.  “Somethin’ so ya don’t have to go to your bed alone without even Cecily tonight o’ all nights?”

She stiffened, her mouth dropping open in an instant of clearly caught shock before the mask of feigned ignorance descended.  “What do you mean?”

“Twenty-four, he’da been today, or is me count off?” Seamus asked calmly.  “And don’t go tellin’ me that ain’t it when I just seen the look in your eyes swearin’ it true.  Don’t mind bein’ lied to, but bein’ lied to badly pisses me right off, it does.  True ya don’t want be seein’ me angry.”

“Or what?” She fired back sarcastically.  “You’d –“

“Pick ya up outa that chair, carry ya upstairs to the bed – kickin’ and screamin’ if hat’s how ya want it - and hold ya down long’s it took to sleep with ya.”  There was no threat to the statement, just a calmly matter-of-fact certainty, but she gaped at him in as much horror as if he’d just described in cool detail the particulars of her own intended murder.  

“You –“

Suddenly, Seamus realized too late how his words had seemed to her, and he sighed, rubbing at his forehead in frustration.  “Oh, feckin…I’m sorry.  Beat I am, no denyin’, and ain’t best at thinkin’ o’ what I’m sayin’ when I ain’t.  I didn’t mean….”  He sighed, looking up at her to begin again.  “Look, Susan, I’ve gone low in me life, I have, done some wicked things, no mistake, but rape’s never been and never will be somethin’ I’d stoop to.  Meant only what I said, no more.  But even if I don’t need put ya to it by force, offer still stands to share the bed.  Empty sluts they were, sure, but there were nights enough I only got through by bein’ able to reach out and feel another human breathin’ there when seemed I were whole alone in the world.”

He had spoken in what he hoped was completely transparent honesty, and to his relief, the fear vanished from her face in a faint smile, though the stubborn resolve remained beneath.  “You’re a good friend, Seamus, and I’m starting to think a better man than you give yourself credit for, but I’m sorry, I just couldn’t.  Don’t take it the wrong way, you’re not unattractive, but –“

He rolled his eyes, smirking.  “And you’re downright lovely, if that mattered any, but even if I’d energy for’t – which I don’t – I ain’t the sort be seducin’ a widow on her husband’s birthday.  Just wrong, that.”  Even the black humor was discarded now, and he stepped around behind her chair, resting one hand gently on her shoulder.  “No, just offerin’ a sort o’ breathin’ teddy, I am, clothes on and all.  I’ll even help ya with the business with Sinead tomorrow when’s we can both see straight.”

There was a long, uncertain pause, then she turned her head, planting a light, sisterly kiss on his wrist as she smiled up at him, no longer attempting to hide her equal exhaustion.  “In that case, Seamus, I think I’d be happy to sleep with you…on two conditions.”

“What’d those be?”

She made a face, gesturing at his muck-spattered clothing.  “I Scourgify you within an inch of your life. You reek.”

“Fair,” He grinned.  “The other?”

“Down here, on the couch.  Otherwise, I’m not going to be the only one to misunderstand your motives.”

He looked where she had pointed, and as he considered the broad, overstuffed sofa with its piles of warmly knitted afghans, he could feel something that with a few weeks of sleep could almost have passed for his old, cheeky grin spread across his face.  “Now that, darlin’, be the best idea you’ve had all blessed night.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” Seamus sighed almost sensuously, “it means I don’t have to drag me sorry arse up no stairs.” 

THE END