[FIN] No. 4: Show me a sign.

He listened thoroughly to the agenda on what he was going to do on the next day from his mentor, and wrote it in his diary. His face almost pale to look how busy he might be and how little space for him to breathe. The mentor seemed aware, he patted Rhys back and told him about the duty as mediwizard and reassured that everything is going to be alright.

Rhys put his uniform off, the mediwizard coat that he refused to wear in public, he put it into the storage dedicated to him. Just like a doctor in a muggle world, they don’t wear the white coats in public.

“See you tomorrow, Kelly.” Ah, that was Emily. A way too pretty for Rhys, healer. A couple years older than him but the woman looks so young she could pass as younger than Rhys himself.

“See ya, Emily. Still not done with your shift?”

“Wee bit hour, I’ll manage.” Rhys smiled, somehow reluctant to leave but even though he stayed Emily would be busy working. St Mungo’s wasn’t a place to have a chat especially if you work in it. Rhys sighed as the woman leaves him. He took a good look at the green coat that flew as those long legs took steps away, aware the rest of the day would be a very relaxing one.

Oh boy, how naive the thought was?

As soon as he left the premises, something — more like someone, jumped onto him. The firewhiskey breath was incredibly apparent which he thought the person was probably some homeless person about to rob him. Rhys was about to take his wand when the voice so familiar stopped him, the voice that became too often he heard in a matter of weeks.

“Merlin! Pickering!” He reached the man’s face without even asking if he was allowed or not. There was redness on the man’s eyes, Pickering looked exhausted and dehydrated. “What on earth are you talking about?” What hope did he squeezed? Because the last time he remembered, Pickering was about to punch him on the face.

“Come on, you need a proper rest.” He took his wand, hold the man in his arm and apparate to his place in Hampstead.

Surprised the apparition resulted in Pickering end up puked on his floor? No, on the contrary, Rhys expected it. He let the man all four on the floor while he opened the window and let the summer wind enter his room. Eight at night but the sun was still up like it was in the middle of afternoon.

As soon as Pickering seemed calmed down, Rhys waved his wand which made the floor look pristine before he guided Pickering to sit on the two seat sofa in his small studio right on the Hampstead high street.

“Oh hell! You smell so bad!” Another wave with his wand, he enhanced the air refresher which brought the whiff of clean linen or more like laundry detergent which he preferred. He took a small towel from his bathroom, drenched it with warm water before sitting beside the man and cleaning Pickering’s face with it. “Don’t fucking move!”


He sighed, remembering what the man said seconds before they apparated while his hand tracing on Pickering’s drunken face.

“You almost punched me, you were surely not happy if I joined you, and you never came to visit me even though you knew exactly where to find me. Do I know where to find you? No you — !” Twat!

“I thought you hated me.”

“Who the fuck has a right mind for that? Next time could be tomorrow, it could be a day after tomorrow, it could be fortnight or when you are not to hate me —”

Just like a mother who was currently taking care of her little child, or more like when Rhys took care of his younger siblings. Rhys gently wiped the man’s face with a cleaned, warm towel including the lips area where it smelled like alcohol and puke.

“If it hurts for you, what about me? You said yourself I'm a Hufflepuff, you reckon I can do that?” You reckon I can and willingly, voluntarily hurt you? — Rhys looked at the man losing his energy, sat with his head laid back to the seat. This would cause a great hangover on the next day. He threw the towel to the basket full of dirty clothes and with a wave from his wand, the kettle boiled. “And it didn’t cross your mind that I’m scared too? Did you think the journal was left in the bed because of me? Did I ask for it?”

He took two mugs, put a tea bag and honey then poured hot water on each. A warm sweet English breakfast aroma dominating the room. He gave one to Pickering. “Careful it’s hot, drink it, you dehydrated like the sand in the desert.” Rhys took his and chose to sit on the cabinet right in front of the sofa. From there, he has a good look of how awful Pickering was.

“Why do you do this?” Drunk yourself until you lose control, what’s the point? Who hurt you?

He took his tea, let the warm lingered in his throat and chest while Pickering gathered himself. Forget all, what to forget? Their encounter? Rhys was about to protest but ended up letting the man finish first. He wanted to know everything, every single thing.

“I don’t even know what to understand. To be frank, Pickering, you are not an easy person to talk to. You are stiff, only thinking about yourself, but weirdly, incredibly, distant. You even stopped me when I tried to call your name. Your real name.” Rhys licked his lower lips, couldn’t believe what was happening in his own safe place. He took a sip from his drink. “And I thought you weren’t ready to talk, you asked why I want to go with you. Because I want to know you!”

— “For merlin’s sake, I heard a different person when I read that journal. I’m sorry, I know I’m crossing the line, I read it because I don’t know whose journal that was until in the point there’s your name at the back. I don’t even know your middle name starts with A.”

He fumed and it was obvious. “It has been weeks and I haven’t heard anything about you or from you.” and he remembered the last time they met. The tense, as Rhys could feel the gripped on the man’s hand ready to swing it onto his face. Rhys traced his neck as he could feel the tightness on his collar shirt, as the man pulled it up.

“I don’t have many friends, Pickering but since at the Leaky I thought you are one.”

Athanasius,

What a pretty name.

For Rhys, his name was nothing like Pickering’s, just some random words that used to be a name before and it was still used as a name after. Rhys, just like other pagans children, was not baptised. No names added to theirs that came from the church.

“I do. I do want to be your friend but I have a limit too, after the grip, after the slander, after how you scoff, I was so close to losing myself and I don’t want that. Because I still want to be your friend, that’s why I said next time.” Rhys finished his tea and walked to the smaller nook that he called kitchen or more like a pantry to put the dirty dishes in the sink. The brush and water start running to clean the mug right away.

“I thought I could be like you, become the exception but I guess I’m just like another kid at school.” He reached at the storage on the top of the bar, picked a pack of muggle biscuits. It was called digestive with milk chocolate. “I guess I’m not as special as you.”

Because you are always the exception.

With a pack of biscuits in his hand, he sat on the sofa. Took and munched one of them before giving it to Pickering.

“We always want something we don’t have.” Eventually a smile formed on Rhys face. He might be mad, he might fume, but he never holds a grudge. It was easy for Rhys to feel lonely, hence he always cherished people around him and in this case, Pickering wasn’t exception.

“There’s a serious prejudice regarding your house, but we might not be like this if you do.”

He couldn’t help wondering what if they spend the same time in the same house together. Yeah, It would be nice. They were probably friends already, and Pickering probably won’t act like he saw that time or this recent time, reserved and distant. Pickering is probably more like the man that he read in the journal, warm, welcoming, and gentle — the man won’t yearn to feel belong because he will. If they ended up in the same house.

“My next time is exactly what it meant, it could be tomorrow, a day after tomorrow, next fortnight, next month — maybe not next month, I probably think you already forgot about me.” He took the biscuits again, rested his leg on the small console table in front of them. “Did you get drunk often? Is that how you cope?”

There was a light white feather touch his nose, almost resulted to sneeze. These Daily Prophet's owl need a maintenance.

“I would like to have another next time, and another, and another until we are sick of each other.”

Rhys smiled while he looked at Pickering, somehow there was an urge to vandalise the face with marker or attack it with a pillow hard just to spark laughter on that stern face. Not that day, he was still tip toeing.

He could feel the heaviness on his shoulder. The smell of alcohol, hints of smell like puke, tea, and linen that still lingers in the room. Rhys sighed, his hand reached the tip of the man’s head, traced Pickering’s hair, and gently caressed it like he used to do it for his younger sibling about to go to bed soon.

“I know Slytherin is not as bright as the Ravenclaws, but this is passed from idiocy act, especially coming from you.” He pinched the man’s nose jokingly. The question made him sighed, again. To be honest, he read all of them. Even the one that made him blush as he never imagined the written things were possible to do in real life. It was licentious.

“I see how lonely you are. You really want to hold hands with our senior, fair enough he was very nice to everyone. Your type is a pretty quidditchy lads, a wee hunk man, and you got an example from the magazine there.” the cutted figure that looks like someone who went for a war or exercised on a daily basis, someone who was incredibly far off from Rhys’ physical traits.

“I saw how your parents want you back to the muggle world, and they are religious, and I saw your carnal sense.” His forehead frowned, face bloomed red, but head shook. “I don’t know how you do it but you do you, Pickering.” He chuckles, carnal things weren’t something he used to talk about on a day to day basis. He was still embarrassed about it. “Hey, you know what? Whatever happened. Don’t ruin yourself for it. This drinking thing, is going to destroy your liver if you kept going.”

Rhys shrugged and let the man who laid his head onto him moved for a couple of seconds. Effective, the man said. Effective for what? Effective to destroy the organ until it was too late and the damage couldn’t be treated anymore? Both of them haven’t reached twenty yet but if Pickering kept doing it, he might not even reach thirty.

“No worries, maybe we are just lonely people”

He reached the man’s free hand, remembering the exact sentence that was written in the journal. Rhys remembered how torn he was when he read it. It was a simple thing, things that he used to do with his exes, simple things like walking in a hallway with their fingers intertwined, or his arm on the girl’s shoulder, a quick peck before class. A simple thing he did but Pickering here never had to experience.

It would create some hush hush for sure, teachers probably put their involvement. It wasn’t pity, but empathy. Rhys imagines putting himself in Pickering’s shoes, his life must be very lonely.

“I’m not our hunky senior that you like, or some athletic lads so it might feel different.” Rhys intertwined his fingers in the gap of Pickering’s palm “But now at least you know how it feels to hold someone’s hand.” Smiles so wide, his forehead meet jokingly hit the man’s head but the reaction after was came from a reflex.

“No shit Pickle you are fucking smelly! Take a shower, clean yourself, I’ll get toothbrush for you.”