FIC: The Dragon Man
Dec. 27th, 2014 04:29 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
elmyraemilie.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
hp_goldenageTitle: The Dragon Man
Characters/Pairings: Charlie Weasley, OMCs, brief mention of other canon characters
Rating: Any Age
Summary: Up to now, the dragons have been enough.
Word Count: 757
Author Notes: Unbeta'd. Please let me know if you see errors.
Bathilda Bagshot’s Bingo prompt: Ashes
That was that.
Charlie kicked at a stick of charcoal that used to be one of his tent-poles. A fine cloud of ash rose into the air; he sneezed. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, he squatted down to poke through the charred result of the ire of a nesting Romanian Longhorn. He had a good sturdy canteen he particularly liked, and he thought maybe it hadn't melted.
Thirty-five years of field work had taught him not to pack anything he couldn't live without. When he was on his first apprentice expedition with Sandor Pogany, one stroke of a ridgeback's wing had swept just about everything he owned into Lake Feher. To this day, he could hear old Pogany's nasal voice telling him to stop whining and pay attention or he'd lose worse than a tent and some clothes.
A dozen yards away, Bellfield and Dewberry were standing together, looking at the remains of Dewberry's tent. “I don't fancy telling Janine about this one,” he said.
Bellfield clapped him on the shoulder. “She knows the risks, and she still puts up with you. Just emphasize the positives—you're there to tell the tale.”
Dewberry shook his head and smiled, his teeth white in his soot-blackened face. “Is that the tack you take with Belinda?” he asked, and Bellfield laughed. They looked over at Charlie. “All well, Charles?” Bellfield called.
“The sodding tent leaked, anyway,” Charlie replied. “No great loss.” Then he had a thought. “You did put the notes into the storage pit after dinner, didn't you?”
“You bet I did,” said Bellfield, in the tone of one who has rescued holy writ. The three of them shared a relieved silence, considering the months of work that might have been reduced to ashes.
“Just look at this flame spread, though.” Charlie squinted around at the blackened swathe of meadowland smoking gently in the evening light. “We used the new encampment protocols, and she still got two of the four tents. Have we underestimated her size, do you think?”
They were up late, working under Lumos to get the site cleaned up, erect the spare tents, and record the event in their notes. As Charlie crawled into unfamiliar bedding, he heard Dewberry say to Bellfield, “At least Weasley doesn't have to worry about a wife and kids at home. There's a virtue in that for a dragon man.”
He rolled himself up in the old comforter that smelled of moth repellent and stared into the darkness. He used to tell himself the same thing: it wasn't right to put someone through the worry of being partnered with a dragon handler.
He'd watched his brothers and Harry do the mating dance, seen the good and the bad of it, and wondered at the variety of companionship that made people happy. The twins: now that was something. But none of it, not straight, not gay, not even the triad he tried not to think too hard about, inspired in him the need to seek out that kind of relationship. A sexual relationship.
He wasn't a virgin, not hardly; in his teens, he'd tried girls, and when that didn't do much for him, he tried boys. It all seemed a bit overwrought to Charlie, so once he got away from home and his mother's matchmaking, he just dropped the pursuit of partnership altogether and loved his dragons with his whole heart.
Now here he was, at the age his father had been when he'd had his first grandchild. Whenever he went home, back to the bosom of the Burrow in its cozy glory, leaking grand-Weasleys at every window and door, he watched his siblings share in-jokes with their partners. They sighed over their annoying habits and backed them up in arguments, and then late in the evening around the fire they cuddled and whispered and smiled together.
Charlie was happy for them, truly. That didn't keep him from being mad that he would grow old alone, just because he couldn't bring himself to tell lies with his body, to pretend. He loved his dragons. His heart filled with happiness to see them, his great flying beasts, but the dragons would never, ever love him back.
He closed his Lumos and rolled over. Had to track that nesting mother in the morning, and there was no point in losing sleep over what couldn't be helped.
TO BE CONTINUED...
(Mods, could I have a Charlie Weasley tag please? Thankies!)
Characters/Pairings: Charlie Weasley, OMCs, brief mention of other canon characters
Rating: Any Age
Summary: Up to now, the dragons have been enough.
Word Count: 757
Author Notes: Unbeta'd. Please let me know if you see errors.
Bathilda Bagshot’s Bingo prompt: Ashes
That was that.
Charlie kicked at a stick of charcoal that used to be one of his tent-poles. A fine cloud of ash rose into the air; he sneezed. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, he squatted down to poke through the charred result of the ire of a nesting Romanian Longhorn. He had a good sturdy canteen he particularly liked, and he thought maybe it hadn't melted.
Thirty-five years of field work had taught him not to pack anything he couldn't live without. When he was on his first apprentice expedition with Sandor Pogany, one stroke of a ridgeback's wing had swept just about everything he owned into Lake Feher. To this day, he could hear old Pogany's nasal voice telling him to stop whining and pay attention or he'd lose worse than a tent and some clothes.
A dozen yards away, Bellfield and Dewberry were standing together, looking at the remains of Dewberry's tent. “I don't fancy telling Janine about this one,” he said.
Bellfield clapped him on the shoulder. “She knows the risks, and she still puts up with you. Just emphasize the positives—you're there to tell the tale.”
Dewberry shook his head and smiled, his teeth white in his soot-blackened face. “Is that the tack you take with Belinda?” he asked, and Bellfield laughed. They looked over at Charlie. “All well, Charles?” Bellfield called.
“The sodding tent leaked, anyway,” Charlie replied. “No great loss.” Then he had a thought. “You did put the notes into the storage pit after dinner, didn't you?”
“You bet I did,” said Bellfield, in the tone of one who has rescued holy writ. The three of them shared a relieved silence, considering the months of work that might have been reduced to ashes.
“Just look at this flame spread, though.” Charlie squinted around at the blackened swathe of meadowland smoking gently in the evening light. “We used the new encampment protocols, and she still got two of the four tents. Have we underestimated her size, do you think?”
They were up late, working under Lumos to get the site cleaned up, erect the spare tents, and record the event in their notes. As Charlie crawled into unfamiliar bedding, he heard Dewberry say to Bellfield, “At least Weasley doesn't have to worry about a wife and kids at home. There's a virtue in that for a dragon man.”
He rolled himself up in the old comforter that smelled of moth repellent and stared into the darkness. He used to tell himself the same thing: it wasn't right to put someone through the worry of being partnered with a dragon handler.
He'd watched his brothers and Harry do the mating dance, seen the good and the bad of it, and wondered at the variety of companionship that made people happy. The twins: now that was something. But none of it, not straight, not gay, not even the triad he tried not to think too hard about, inspired in him the need to seek out that kind of relationship. A sexual relationship.
He wasn't a virgin, not hardly; in his teens, he'd tried girls, and when that didn't do much for him, he tried boys. It all seemed a bit overwrought to Charlie, so once he got away from home and his mother's matchmaking, he just dropped the pursuit of partnership altogether and loved his dragons with his whole heart.
Now here he was, at the age his father had been when he'd had his first grandchild. Whenever he went home, back to the bosom of the Burrow in its cozy glory, leaking grand-Weasleys at every window and door, he watched his siblings share in-jokes with their partners. They sighed over their annoying habits and backed them up in arguments, and then late in the evening around the fire they cuddled and whispered and smiled together.
Charlie was happy for them, truly. That didn't keep him from being mad that he would grow old alone, just because he couldn't bring himself to tell lies with his body, to pretend. He loved his dragons. His heart filled with happiness to see them, his great flying beasts, but the dragons would never, ever love him back.
He closed his Lumos and rolled over. Had to track that nesting mother in the morning, and there was no point in losing sleep over what couldn't be helped.
TO BE CONTINUED...
(Mods, could I have a Charlie Weasley tag please? Thankies!)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}