Pairing: Platonic Jacob and Bunty Friendship, rated K+/PG for mentions of a burn wound.
Summery: Bunty comes to work the day after the group returns from Paris with question, and Jacob realizes there could be a lot of healing ahead.
A/N- So, this was originally supposed to be a very sweet, romantic Jacob/Bunty ficlet but...turned into this after several drafts. As well as became longer than I initially expected, and I think most critically got moved way up from being set about a year after CoG in my first draft to...a day later in the final. But I am actually not upset about the change it went though, and like the end result for sure! Have some healing and platonic Jacob and Bunty friendship for your day, everyone :).
Bunty is still slightly shocked when she returns the next morning for work to find one of the men that had returned with Newt sleeping on the couch. The one with a mustache and brown eyes that introduced himself as Jacob the night before. He had only seemed to take off his shoes and outer coat before covering up with a quilt in the living room. Trying her best to be quiet as possible and let him sleep, she walks past him.
But it seems she fails as she makes her way to the kitchen of Newt townhouse to make tea- something which Newt always allowed Bunty to help herself too. Jacob stirs and jolts up, clearly panicked, but seems to calm when he finds it is just her.
“Oh, morning.” He says. Blinking and rubbing sleep from his eyes. Sadness and exhaustion seeped from his voice.
It doesn’t shock her. Newt explained they had all lost someone in Paris, were all were hurting when she had inquired about everyone’s dark countenance last night. Jacob seemed to be no different from any other in the group of people. Like she had with the others, the assistant tried to be kind, and help them in any way she knew how without asking too much. Afraid to make their pain worse.
“Good morning.” She replies, trying to give him a genuine smile, before finding she has no excuse to stay there and crosses into the kitchen. “I’m going to make tea, would you like some?”
Politely he shakes his head no with a half-hearted but well-meaning smile in return and moves to stand and make his way to the bathroom off to the side. That’s when she notices a reddish-brown wound on his arms under the ripped sleeve of his shirt. Or, with a closer look, it is clearly a burn. Tina, the woman Newt fancied, had a bad scald on her hands the night before, and Newt himself mentioned needing to mend his burned jacket. But did no one look to heal this man in the group?
“You’re arm, are you okay?” Bunty asks.
The man then looks at the wound she drew attention to. Moving it even looks sore as she watches him while putting a kettle of water on the stove.
“Oh, It’s nothing.” He attempts to assure her.
“Please. Let me heal it? No sense in letting it hurt. Only takes a few seconds, a spell, and it will be almost like it never happened.” Bunty insists, pulling her wand out of a conveniently large pocket.
Looking at the wound, and at her worried expression, Jacob determines it is for the best to let her take care of the wound. It had not been the most serious or severe injury and thus had been ignored in place of everyone else who had been hurt. But it was still painful, and likely dirty at this point and Newts assistant, Bunty, if he remembered correctly, seemed willing to help. Which he was thankful for, as Jacob realizes the longer he is awake, the more throbbing begins.
Sitting down, he offers his arm as Bunty meets him in the middle. Taking a good look in silence, she leads him to the kitchen table and gets to work using some warm water, a cloth, and her wand. Slowly cleaning the wound without saying anything right away. Until Bunty decided to say something first.
“Nasty little burn. Must have been horrible, what caused it.” She says. “Newt hasn’t told me much...just that it was a massacre.”
Jacob nods. Grimacing when she starts to clean it enough for the tender skin to scream at her clothed touch. Quickly, she employs her wand to soothe most of the pain as she continues to work on cleaning it. When he can speak, Jacob barely can get the words out above a whisper. “Yeah...I didn’t expect to see people die when we went to Paris. Or to see her-”
Jacob pauses to stop tears from welling up or his voice from cracking. The image of Queenie walking through sapphire flames as he calls out to her as desperately as he could. If only he’d been more understanding? Could things have been different? It could be the guilt, but the man couldn’t stop thinking if he hadn’t said what he did, his Queenie could be with them now. Logic told him there were much deeper reasons Queenie did what she did, but it still felt to him like it was his doing.
“Did someone you know join him? Grindelwald, I mean.” She asks. “Newt- he mentioned that some people left with that madman, and you all had to find them.” Jacob saw her concern and couldn’t help but be warmed. Everyone was mourning Leta or Credence. Tina, the only one who shed a tear for Queenie confided in Newt exclusively at the moment.
“Yes. My fiancée, Queenie. She...sided with him.”
Bunty stops cleaning as she thinks of a response. Now using her wand and plenty of healing charms.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Some people, they don’t turn out to be who we expect. And they can end up hurting us.” She says. “But it is not your fault. Queenie made her choice, and you shouldn’t blame yourself.” Bunty ends on a hunch that, for whatever reason, he thought it was on him that this woman, Queenie, joined Grindelwald’s ranks.
He looks at her in the eyes and finds warmth and understanding there. There is a distinct feeling she comes from a place of knowing loss like this, or something similar. For a moment, he wishes, for the first but not the last time that Queenie’s memories wouldn’t hurt him so that maybe he could explore the rush of happiness and comfort he gets from her words. Jacob manages to somewhat genuinely smile back as a sort of thanks to her.
Bunty knows he can’t understand the way her own heart shattered last night when she came face to face with the woman Newt had carried around the photo of. The one she had seen him spend hours and hours writing to. Or the way she finally had to give up hope of the man she looked up to returning her feelings. But she hopes he can know what she’s been telling herself since; it will be fine, and life goes on without them.
“Your burn should be completely healed in a day or two.” She says. Wrapping his arm in a clean bandage before quickly mending the white shirt over it.
When she is done, Jacob asks if he can help her with breakfast as he sees her start it, explaining he is a baker and a cook by trade, and she happily allows him to help.
