{ blood in the water / bellatrix & rodolphus }
@ruthless-rodolphus·
Rodolphus was an early riser. He almost always got up at the same time each morning, went about his morning routine of breakfast and personal hygiene, then got started on whatever needed doing for that day. There was always much to be done, either information to be found out, letters to be written to that end, people and spies to check in with. He worked tirelessly for hours sometimes before looking up and realising it was noon. These last few days, however, he’d been going to bed later and getting up even earlier than usual. Partially, there was too much to be done, and partially because worrying over it all, or at least thinking about it, had kept him from sleeping very well and if he couldn’t sleep he might as well be productive.
So it was this morning. There were letters to write and Lucius to wrangle and threads to be gathered. The frustrating part of it all was that of all the gathering and work he’d already done these past few days, it had turned up frustratingly little useful work. One of their own was dead, however, and not in a duel where he would’ve been wearing his mask. Someone had found him out and they needed to know how that had happened and quickly, so Rodolphus had been trying to get that answer for days.
He was dressed and at his desk, working on letters and missives. He hadn’t yet put on a tie or his suit jacket but his dress shirt was buttoned up, his pants perfectly pressed. It would take only a moment to be fully dressed but he’d already skipped breakfast and simply showered and gotten to work as quickly as possible. Rodolphus heard her stomping down the hallway even before she opened the bedroom doors. He’d thought she was going to be getting in today but he hadn’t expected her quite so early. He didn’t have time to stand, as he normally would have to greet her, before the bedroom doors were flung open in a dramatic entrance that almost made him smile because it was so like her. That smile died before it had a chance to touch his features at her words, the accusation in her tone, and his jaw clenched slightly as he put down his quill and stood. She looked tired, wilder than usual, and he wondered how much sleep she’d been getting, but clearly they were skipping all pleasantries and not even reuniting properly. Instead, she was greeting him with accusations and he didn’t much appreciate it.
“I’m certain.” His tone was just as cold as hers, though without the accusation, since there was nothing to accuse her of even if this whole display was already irritating him. He came out from behind the desk and approached her, feeling a magnetic pull towards her even if he was annoyed at the moment. He knew better than to try and touch her now, though, but he couldn’t seem to help wanting to be at least a little closer. Rodolphus nodded once at the mention of a meeting. “We do. I’ve been working towards that end.”
There was more and the tension in the silence told him that so he waited, watching her. Then it was there, the accusation stated plainly and his eyes blazed with an anger he rarely let show but he was tired and his grip on his temper slipped. “I had it under control? It wasn’t left in my control. I’ve done what I could but Lucius is at the helm, as you well know.” Each word was nearly bitten off, snapped and brittle like branches from frost. He moved closer to her, muscles rigid with anger. “That’s what I’ve been trying to find out, for days, with little success.” A muscle in his jaw twitched as he looked at her. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. Don’t you dare.” They were never good words to say to her, he knew she’d react poorly, but he couldn’t seem to help it when she’d burst in here like this, not even giving him the chance to welcome her home or drink in the sight of her for the first time in weeks.
“I want to see Rookwood’s body,” she said stubbornly. Bellatrix had no doubt that Lucius and Rodolphus had scoured Rookwood’s corpse for evidence, but she wasn’t going to be so easily placated. She felt a surprising pang of guilt for being so transactional about all of this – after all, Rookwood had been one of them. She’d hope that people wouldn’t talk about her like this if she perished, like she was just something to be examined and discarded once her usefulness had expired. “We need to plan a funeral,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as a headache started to form behind her eyes. “Something that honors him and everything he’s done for the cause. Something worthy of you or I, if we were in his position.” She felt something acrid rise in her throat, something suspiciously close to fear, at the mere implication of Rodolphus’ death, but that was the wife in her, not the warrior. This was the reality of their situation, and Rookwood was a very real, very unnerving reminder that any of them could meet their end without any warning.
However, Rodolphus was making it very easy for her to forget that concern was something she even felt for him. “You were never supposed to let him helm anything,” she snapped. “Must I spell everything out, darling, or have you never heard of a figurehead? Perhaps, you’re familiar with the idea of a puppet? Or maybe even the concept of manipulating the fucking waste of semen into doing your bidding?” She was being unfair, and she knew it – Lucius wasn’t an easy mark, and his mistrust of Rodolphus didn’t make anything easier. But she was exhausted from traveling, one of their own was dead, and she could feel panic and paranoia making her short and snappish with the one person who least deserved it. “What is the point of you if you have no answers?” she snarled. “What is the point of bringing me home if there’s nothing for me to do? It’s been three days since Rookwood died, no? And yet, you have found out nothing?”
Bellatrix despised that, while standing, Rodolphus had the illusion of dominance over her solely created by his height. But more so than that, she despised that she missed him. He was close enough to her that she could smell the cologne on his skin, that one step closer and she could slot against him and fold their bodies together and forget all about this. Their proximity only incensed her further, and his commanding warning of, Don’t you dare, lit a fire within her that even he couldn’t put out. “It happened on your fucking watch. Who else am I to blame? Certainly not Lucius. He’s a blundering idiot. But you’re not. You’re smart and careful and precise and very fucking good at your job, so forgive me if I’m struggling to grasp how you not only allowed this to happen, but also you still somehow have not managed to staunch the bleeding.” She hated having to crane her head up at him, hated that he was putting her in this position, hated that Rookwood was dead, and frustrated, she shoved him away from her because she couldn’t think when he was that close to her. Their marriage lacked a separation of church and state, and right now, they were suffering the consequences of that. “If I’d been here, I’d have never let this happen,” she muttered, mostly to herself, crossing the room to create some space between them but also to fish her cigarettes out of the desk, lighting one angrily. “If I’d been here, I could have stopped it.”
