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Even the Wolf In You	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Bill/Charlie Views: 5304 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of it's characters, nor am I making any money off of this fic. Obviously.

Chapter List
- 1-1
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
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II.

Bill knew. He didn't want to worry anyone, so, as usual, he kept his concerns private, but he knew. He wasn't himself anymore. There was a subtle change in him, something that severely hampered his perpetual state of calm. Hunger was harder on him. He'd always skipped meals when he was busy at work. It had never bothered him much, but now? Impossible. Everything tasted different – foods he'd always loved were cardboard, foods he'd never taken particular notice of were nearly orgasmic. Meats, in particular, were an almost sensual experience. He could cope with his sudden increase in appetite. It was the anger he couldn't handle. He found his temper desperately short and difficult to conceal. Mostly, it was little things. He would get annoyed by the way Fleur's heels tapped against the tiled floor in the kitchen, or some minor and careless mistake one of the clerks at Gringotts had made. He'd noticed just this afternoon that there were half-moon indentations in the wood of his desk from his fingernails.

At first, he'd chalked it up to how quickly everything had changed for him. Of course things would be hard to get used to. The world was just a little brighter, a little louder. And scents were enough to drive him mad! He could stand in the main entrance to Gringotts and identify what the lunch special was at the cafe up the road and around the corner. He'd been forced, reluctantly, to ask Fleur to stop wearing perfume – it gave him an incredible headache, which was a shame, because he'd always rather fancied the scent before. He was beginning to hate London because the sounds and aromas overwhelmed him, and it made him angry to think that he now loathed so many of the things he once held dear. Surely, there must be something, some small pleasure to cling to, but he had been back home and back to work and back to the Order of the Phoenix for weeks, and he still didn't know what that something could possibly be.

Then there was Fleur – bless her for trying, but she was trying entirely too hard. It wasn't any one thing that she was doing; she was just always there. Hovering. Pursing her perfect little ruby lips at him. Asking him if he needed anything. He bit his tongue to keep himself from saying 'I need you to bugger off' several times a night. It wasn't her fault; she was just worried, but he couldn't stand it. If work was one kind of hell, and home was another, how was he to get any peace? For the first time in his life, Bill envied Charlie his dragons and his trees and his bloody mosquito repellent charms.

Bill raked his fingers back through his long hair and let out a long-suffering sigh as he heard Fleur's court shoes tap-tapping their way closer to the study where he sat hunched over the radio. He turned up the Quidditch game as if that could dampen the ambient noise. No such luck. She was still tapping away somewhere between the bungled Wronski Feint and the Harpies' next ten-pointer.

The door swung open with all the pomp and circumstance the build-up deserved. Bill hated himself a little extra for thinking 'What does the bloody woman want now?' before he could stop himself. It was Fleur, and he loved Fleur. He'd married her, hadn't he? So why did the way she sidled up to him and draped her arms around his shoulders leave him feeling so cold? He could feel the silk neglige she was wearing flutter against the back of his arms.

"Biiillll," she purred in that melodic tone she used when she was trying to seduce him.

'And why should she have to try? She's beautiful, intelligent, and okay, quirky but that was what I've always liked about her most.'

"I'm sorry, Fleur. Not tonight, okay?" he told her.

"Not tonight," she huffed, dragging her fingertip along his collarbone. "Nor yesterday. Not once this week at all. We barely even kiss," she complained.

Bill didn't need to look at her to know the sullen pout she wore as she tried to slide her hands down into his collar. If his mood wasn't already so sour, he'd have given her an E for Effort, but as things stood her insistence irritated him. "You're exaggerating," Bill replied. "I kissed you when I got in from work."

"On ze cheek!" Fleur declared in protest. "I am still young and beautiful. Why do you ignore me?"

Bill knew she wasn't asking for anything out of the ordinary. She was his wife, and newly married – he should want to shower her in affection. He just didn't, but the logical little voice that told him so was barely a murmur in the back of his mind. "Enough!" he declared in one of those uncharacteristic, but recently very common, fits of anger. "You're a grown woman, do you need my attention every second of every day?!" He lashed his arm out thoughtlessly to gain some space, and in the act backhanded his wife across the jaw rather firmly. She stumbled back several steps. The heel of her shoe snapped as she tried to catch her weight, and she collapsed to the floor, hands coming up to a red lump on her cheek that was sure to bruise.

The anger dissipated as quickly as it had come on. Bill stared down at her as if the world had stopped. It was an accident. Of course it was an accident, but even as an accident, he'd hurt her. It was only the smallest flare of temper and she was half crumpled to the ground. "Fleur, I..." he stuttered, reaching out a hand to help her up.

"Do not touch me!" she snapped swatting his hand away. "Go!"

Bill opened his mouth, trying to find the right words, the proper apology, but he was horrified by his actions. "I..."

"Just go," she said more calmly, but sadly. "For tonight, go."

He disapparated before making a conscious decision where to go. This was dangerous, but even if his mind didn't know what it needed, the rest of him was pretty clear on the subject. His legs wobbled and he crashed into the front door of a particularly battered cabin. The second step sagged and there were several boards missing from the porch railing. The cabin stood, essentially, alone at the edge of a forest, but in the distance Bill could make out lights in the windows of neighboring shacks.

Charlie opened the door and stumbled as Bill fell into his chest. His eyes widened. "Bill? What are you doing here?" he asked as he tried to right his older brother. "Are you alright?" he asked even though it was rather obvious he wasn't. If he was alright, he wouldn't be slamming into Charlie's front door at eleven at night; that was for damn sure.

"Mind if I borrow your couch?" Bill answered as if that said it all.

Charlie thought it said rather a lot, but not quite enough. "Bill, what is it?"

Bill wavered. "I hurt her, Charlie. It was just a stupid little thing, but I did it. What if I do it again? Or what if I do even worse? I can't...I'm just so angry all the time, and it keeps getting worse."

Charlie pulled Bill to his chest with his strong arms. "It's just the moon, Bill," he soothed, petting his brother's hair. "It's just the moon. You'll feel like yourself again tomorrow." 'Probably,' Charlie thought.

Bill's head snapped back over his shoulder as Charlie pulled him into the cabin. Sure enough, the moon was full. He hadn't even remembered to keep track of that. Was that it? Was it just near the full moon that he became a mental case? Was it just because of the full moon that Charlie's strength as he pushed him down onto the couch excited him? He blinked up at his younger brother, not sure what to say.

"This is good," Charlie said just to have something to say. "I finally got the muggle film player fixed. We can stay up all night watching films, just like old times. I've still got about twenty boxes of that instant muggle popcorn that dad bought after Harry showed him what it was and how to pop it."

Bill let out a bark of laughter that surprised him. Nothing could lighten the mood like the memory of his father pointing a wand at the little bag of paper last Christmas and the thing bursting into flames. Then he tried several more times before he got it right, little puffy white kernels flying about the house, bouncing off of the clock, knocking Fred's hand from "home" to "prison". The twins took that and ran with it. If their mother was to be believed, she was still finding popcorn in all manner of bizarre places, even several months later. Their father had shoved a crate of the little boxes on each of them in turn. Bill had added the bulk of his stash to Charlie's suitcase when he was sure no one was looking. Popcorn was great, but how much could one person possibly eat?

"Sure," he answered.

"Pick something out," Charlie said from the other side of the counter where he was rummaging through the cupboards to find a bag. "Under the telly. Anything you want."

Bill squatted and stared at the films, but he might as well have been reading hieroglyphics because, like hieroglyphics, at first glance, nothing seemed to make sense. He could read them, of course, but his brain just didn't want to work properly and make a decision. None of the titles jumped out at him.

When Charlie turned about again, he was on his arse on the floor, just staring. Charlie put the bowl on the table on his way over. "Bill, are you okay?"

Bill leaned back toward the voice and found himself resting his head against Charlie's knees. It wasn't really the most comfortable position, but he felt so much more normal for the contact, in spite of how not at all normal he felt tonight. "You pick something," Bill answered. "I'm tired. I can't decide."

Charlie sat on the floor but didn't immediately lean forward to pick out a film. He pulled Bill down against his shoulder and watched as the tension in his older brother's back and shoulders eased. "You should sleep," he said. He hoped Bill didn't notice how his heart thundered when they were close like this. They had enough troubles without adding forbidden love to the mix.

"Can't," Bill replied.

"Well no, not on the floor," Charlie teased. "Come on, let's get you up on the couch. You'll be more comfortable."

Bill let Charlie man-handle him up onto the couch. He knew he was being terribly weak, not at all like himself, but he couldn't resist the way Charlie's easy strength pulled him up by the bootstraps when he'd been a bloody mess since the attack. He'd faked it well, for a while, but now he just felt like he was falling apart. Of course he'd ended up on Charlie's doorstep. Charlie made everything so easy. His strong arms made Bill feel safe. This was a person who could handle himself, wand or no. He wouldn't be able to hurt Charlie like he'd hurt Fleur. It wasn't that he trusted himself not to have a flair of temper and try, but he wouldn't get very far. Just that simple understanding eased so much of the tension coiling in the pit of his stomach. He let himself sink into his brother's arms again as Charlie pulled a light blanket over the pair of them. He wondered what Charlie thought of his new found weakness, but if his brother judged him for it, he didn't show it.

"I'm falling apart, Char," he admitted as if it weren't obvious. "This wolf in me, this thing. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be this minor inconvenience, but I'm not myself anymore. I'm so angry all the time, and tonight, shoving Fleur like that..." He shook his head. "I know I'm not a werewolf, but what am I turning into? I'm not even sure who I am anymore."

"You're Bill, of course," Charlie soothed. It pained him to see perfect, self-assured Bill crumbling like this, but werewolf attack or no, it was bound to happen eventually. He'd been working so hard all of his life to be everything that everyone wanted. It was only a matter of time before he snapped. "Even the wolf in you is Bill," he murmured. "And the Bill I know doesn't have a mean bone in his body. What happened tonight was an accident. You're just worrying too much, same as always. This is your first full moon. You need to give it time. And you need to stop trying to protect your wife from it. If you had just explained it to her clearly from the beginning, you wouldn't be here now, right?"

Bill's lack of reply was all the affirmation Charlie needed. "See," he whispered. "I told you. You're the same as always, just a little less controlled." He pet his brother's hair, trying not to think of how he wished he was the one Bill crawled into bed with at night, but he couldn't be. He'd realized he loved Bill too late. There was no way to overcome that now, so all he could do was try to help his brother keep it together, both his mind, and his marriage. "Get some sleep," he said again, adjusting himself to a more comfortable position and curling his arms more firmly around Bill, so his brother could rest back against his chest.

Bill sunk against him. It was the most wonderful feeling. "I feel so much better when you hold me like this." Bill yawned, unable to curb his tongue in his weakened state. "So, don't let go, alright?"

Charlie's heart ached. "Never," he whispered.

Bill smiled a bit. "At least for tonight," he mumbled as his eyes started to drift.

"Tonight, forever, however long you need," Charlie whispered, but he doubted, drifting off to restless dreams, that Bill even heard him.
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Even the Wolf In You