Absit Omen RPG

He startled a little at Ballentyne's exclamation, quickly following the surprised expression with a good humoured laugh. That was one thing he hadn't worried about - nobody cared about some wizard who'd gone and gotten himself bit by a werewolf south of the border. Robin recovered and turned in peace, sans a scandal.

"No, I understand, nobody wants attention from the public eye," he paused once her ankle rested fully on the knee of the other leg. "I'm thinking more, you know, personal relations. Friends, family, lovers. They look away, it breeds distance. Keep this position for a minute, nice deep breaths while we're here."

The wizard stepped back, adjusting the legs slightly while he continued to chat. "That's what was hanging over my head when I wrote to Bal," he sighed, though it was a pleasant sigh. "Nobody wants to hear from an ex they haven't spoken to in years, much less one who's written with news like mine."

Robin lifted his fingers in mock jazz hands. "Surprise I need a couch to crash on! Oh and I'm a werewolf now!" he grinned and looked younger for it. "But I didn't have to worry. Sometimes you just expect the worse because it's all you got for years."

It was a strange new feeling to be able to expect courtesy and real warmth again, from unexpected corners.

The werewolf thing is a problem. Understatement of the decade, he thought, holding Ballentyne's knee in place and giving it a moment to relax into that stretch.

"Twenty two years is a hell of a lot of time," Robin remarked - he couldn't even imagine what it was like for the table to have turned so suddenly on someone in that position. "I think I get it. One day you're treating werewolf wounds, the next day you're worried about being the one with the claws. It's a huge change when you got more to lose."

No two werewolves had the same experience but he sympathised with Bruce. He'd not thought himself on any particular side of 'the werewolf issue' before. He knew now that at its heart, it addressed wizarding society's neglect for anything that didn't fit the narrative of its history. Werewolves? As victims? Impossible.

"Okay, we're going to try something new..." he touched her ankle and then gestured to her knee. "We're going to cross your ankle over, got it? No hurry, I'll lift your leg nice and slow and you tell me when it hurts too much."

Robin smiled to himself a little. Physical therapy used to bore him as a young Healer but nowadays he saw its value. "Here we go," he wrapped one hand around Ballentyne's ankle and used his other to keep the leg steady. "I had to do stuff like this for my shoulder too. It's crazy, isn't it?" the wizard snorted. "You get bit, your world goes to pieces but everyone pretends not to see, like it's impolite."

Like you'd committed a faux pas and they were being merciful by pretending not to remark. His bitterness ran deep into anger but he quelled it, more focused on his work.

Even as they spoke he kept an assessing eye on Ballentyne's leg, aware that the muscles they intended to stretch would be pulled down by that friend-or-foe, gravity. Robin approached the witch and adjusted her posture with simple, barely-there gestures. He laughed when she described Bal's relationship with Johann as very public.

That sounded right, and made him fond of his hosts.

"Three and a half years, huh?" he raised his eyebrows. "You think you've changed in that time? I mean, beyond the obvious. Let's try to move your knee, open it up, come on."

Robin gentle touched her knee, nudging it away from her good leg to try and stretch her hip muscle out. "Nice and slow, keep your hands on your waist or ribs," he advised and then added, without prompt, "I came out of my bite a different person. And it had a way of making me realise that maybe the people around me weren't the people I thought they were either, you know."

Even the supposedly tolerant ones, the ones who suddenly didn't want you around their kids or in their homes.

The moment he thinks he can catch a bite with gorgeous Bones, a patronus intervenes. Figures.

Robin felt the mood turn, and his own countenance grew grim. It didn't matter what corner of the world you sprang from - nobody liked a Dementor. They seemed to exist as an anti to everything real and essential to actually living: a manifestation of that thing all Healers supposedly battle, a cessation of being.

That the patronus requested Athena specifically meant she was adept. Good.

            "Fuck. How much have you done with Dementors?"

"Fuck is right," he muttered, reaching back to ensure his hair was properly secured. "I've treated exposure plenty but not a lot of, uh, interactions. And never..." Robin gestured in a fluster as he followed his colleague down the passage back to the emergency wards, "never children."

His mind was buzzing with worry at the thought. Kids made for difficult patients even on a good day. "My hands are your hands," he informed Athena, surrendering himself to her direction.

He quickly scribbled a few notes on Rooksby's notes before leaving the clipboard with the attending Mediwitch - they're have to schedule in an allergy test to confirm Robin's suspicions but the real urgent work was resolved for now.

Slipping his hands into the pockets of his robes, he laughed at Athena's tongue-in-cheek answer. "You know, I think it would suit you regardless," he replied with a mock look of appraisal. Robin was pretty tall but he hadn't come across many witches as tall as Marrowbone; something about height in a woman, it exuded regality.

And vampires were really good at that kind of thing.

            "There's cake on the second floor," someone informed them, having overheard only part of the exchange.

Robin glanced from the Mediwitch to Athena, eyebrows raised. "Cake? While the lull lasts?"

He laughed, conceding the point to Ballentyne - everyone did have their secrets. And he was sure even Bal had a few skeletons hiding in the many closets of that old manor.

"For kids, yeah," Robin joked as he set the glass aside and gestured at the witch. "Sit up straight on the edge of the bed, we'll give that a minute to work and then I'm going to move your leg into a stretching position."

As they spoke, a Mediwitch entered with a large tray of the aloe leaves; they were set aside for later and he thanked her before turning back to Bruce. "The Balfour I knew," he leaned against a chair, crossing his arms, "was young and reckless, like most dragon handlers. Can't provide much insight from there."

Even if he could, he wouldn't. Robin sympathised with Ballentyne's position but he was loath to part with anything that could be used as a bargaining chip against his friend.

"But Bal seems... content these days?" his voice lifted, unsure. "He's welcomed me into his home while I'm apartment hunting, so he's as generous as I remember. And I'm pretty sure the crush he has on his own husband isn't a secret."

It fascinated him a little to imagine another world of vampires inside their own world of wixes. Robin watched Athena draw blood, nodding as she explained that their vampire problems largely stemmed from those who didn't belong to covens - not too dissimilar to the attacks he noted back in the states, then.

Funny how a state of not-belonging could lead to violence. He thought a moment about isolated werewolves.

"Outright drained a muggle?" he repeated, drawn back to the matter at hand. "That's gutsy. Though," Robin let Rooksby's blood drip into the alabaster bowl as he spoke, "no survivor means no witness. Not that senseless."

He watched the liquid in the bowl, patient, and handed the blade back to his colleague. "Looks like our friend is safe." Robin's smile was dry. "No immortality today," he glanced up at Athena with a wink. "Do you think you'd fare alright, as a vampire? Feel like I'd go nuts before the next century."

            "Or am I mistaken to a stereotype?"

"Nah, you hit the nail on the head." Robin shrugged, stirring his tea for no particular reason. "You learn to make do with substitute potions, or putting things together to form a whole. I'll have to get used to the little luxuries of St. Mungo's..."

There was always another Healer or Mediwix to help around here as well; sometimes he found things for the Mediwixes to do, unused to them standing in the periphery, awaiting an order or exclamation.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by notable," he hummed in deliberation and leaned back in his seat. "Dragons have given me some of the worst, patients almost literally torn in two."

For a moment he thought of Balfour and had to repress a sigh; to this day, some of the most recklessly begotten wounds. But Robin passed from the thought quickly enough. "One time a we had a patient come in with a confounded Hidebehind," he laughed.

"She was hunting one with a Pukwudgie, they stunned the damn thing but not into unconsciousness..." Robin smiled wider as he spoke, remembering. "It was harmless, confused, kept shifting into the shape behind the witch. Wouldn't leave her. I had to treat her with the thing getting in the way every five seconds."

It was a great story, usually one he told beast handlers who could never get over the idea of being in same room as Hidebehind.

             "I’m starting to think it would be easier if someone just hacked it right off..."

He nodded sympathetically but without commitment, feeling that Athena was more equipped to have this discussion with her long term patient. It was an interesting dilemma: was a leg such as this any better or worse than no leg at all? And there was advancement in the field of prosthetics.

As soon as Ballentyne confirmed she wouldn't mind the longer treatment, he gestured for her to wait a moment and stuck his head out of the curtain to call for a Mediwizard. They would need some of the Dioscorides Aloe that had arrived last week. Having dispatched the wizard to acquire it, Robin procured a tincture from the medicine cabinet before returning to his duty.

"I don't think I can be of any help with Bal," he snorted as he poured most of the tincture into a glass of water. "This is the first I've seen of him in years, we're still catching up on lost time."

The purple-blue tincture tinted the water and he gave it a stir. "What makes you think he's got secrets?" Robin handed her the glass. "Here, drink all of this and we'll do some of those stretches while they're bringing us the stuff we need for your leg."

With any luck, it would soothe at least enough of Bruce's pain to allow for the stretches.

West coast - so they had gone by the old haunts, distant now both in time and space. Robin was glad he hadn't been around when the pair looked in on the old clinic; it would have been awkward, especially after the wedding invitation had gone so unceremoniously ignored.

He smiled gratefully at Johann as a little army tea things danced their way to him. It was all so charming and so British, he found it hard not to like the other man. Though he wasn't, of course, technically British. Not with that voice.

"A job, a change of pace." Robin fiddled with a teaspoon, tracing the edges of its handle as he looked across the kitchen at Johann. "My mother is part English, went to Hogwarts and the whole nine yards. Doesn't have any family left here though."

If she had, he would have looked them up instead of writing to Balfour. But here he was now, feeling more welcomed by his ex-boyfriend's husband than he'd felt with his own people back in the states. It was almost laughable.

Robin set down the teaspoon, willing his hands to be still. "So how did you come to meet Bal?" his own curiousity was piqued as nerves settled. "Tell me a love story," he raised his eyebrows, a laughing smile underneath. "I think the world of him but he could never tell a story straight."

Always some intense emotion got in the way of that, for much the same reason Robin himself was bad at it.

He laughed good-naturedly at Athena's mention of muggle films - the vampires in those moving pictures held a charm that real ones did not. The charm of distance: they weren't real, they couldn't really hurt you.

            "Naught but his skivvies."

The hell was a skivvie? Robin assumed it was a reference to Rooksby's state of undress. He uncorked the bottle of an orange amber potion as he glanced at the witch, mirroring her raised eyebrows when their gazes met. No wand. Maybe he'd left it behind when his vampiric partner brought him here. Or maybe the being had stolen the damn thing.

Robin decanted some potion into the glass and alabaster bowl on the bedside table. "None of our business I guess," he corked the bottle, sighing. "There a lot of vamps in London? Big community?"

His experience with vampire attacks were not unsubstantial but they were committed by different vampires. Robin assumed city vampires were less aggressive, in their organised covens and living inside an already secret society.

"I've dealt with the victims of vagrants," he explained while he watched Athena draw blood for the ritual. "Lot of handlers working night hours, running into exiled vampires or travellers."

It was a real piece of work, what happened to Ballentyne's leg. Robin's touch was as light as promised - he gently adjusted its position as he examined it from ankle to hip, and used the flat of his palms to lightly apply pressure where he needed a better idea of what was happening underneath mangled skin and flesh.

He loved that Athena went by Bones, and wondered if his absent colleague would mind him referring to her the same. "Well Healer Marrowbone was right, it's a good thing you came in."

Robin stepped back, one arm crossed against his chest as he scratched his scruff thoughtfully.

"You don't have much muscle in this leg but what muscle you do have has accrued a hell lot of tension," he motioned to indicate her hamstrings, the back of her knees, and much of her calves. "The pain your feeling is probably enhanced nerve pain, no big surprise you're hurting."

He reached for the clipboard again and took the quill out from behind his ear so that he could quickly scribble down his impressions; Athena would no doubt want to go over the notes when she was back. "Usually I'd prescribe a massage but that would be," he laughed slightly, "excruciating in this case."

The quill went back behind his ear and he paused, clearly thinking.

"How much time do you have right now?" Robin raised an eyebrow. "I can give you a tincture specifically for nerve pain, and we can do a few assisted stretches. There's a longer treatment, if you have a couple of hours to spare."

Time was always running here in London, he noticed. It seemed to move twice as fast as anywhere else in the world.

He laughed lightly, scanning the clipboard again before putting it aside to tend properly to his patient.

"Honestly, I don't taste half of anything I eat right after..." Robin's lips twitched into a dry smile. "But I'm treating myself to a whole Peking duck later tonight, so there's that to look forward to."

One of life's few pleasures was smoking a joint of gillyweed and dining alone in any China town across the world. He found that instilling small routines and pleasures helped give structure to what felt like the structureless tortures of a a full moon. And merlin knew that people like him or Bruce needed those pleasures.

"So, your leg's bothering you after last night?" he gestured, hand hovering over Ballentyne's outstretched ankle, waiting for consent. "Do you mind if I check it out? Professional interest," Robin assured her in an upfront tone. "I have a light touch, don't let my looks fool you."

From experience, he understood how sensitive it could be. His own scar, creeping up from shoulder to neck, had nearly cost him the use of an arm - but there had been a Healer present when he was bitten, and so whatever pain bothered him now was easily relieved by tinctures or potions.

Only the slightest burning sensation, sharp and stinging. Psychosomatic. Knowing that did not prevent the sensation.

"One of Marrowbones?" he repeated when a mediwitch passed him the clipboard. Robin tucked it under his arm before making his way to the assigned cubicle - he stopped only to tie back his hair, which kept coming loose.

Full moons left him feeling  pretty much the same every time. You think it's going to get easier but the moment you get home from the cell, the morning after, it was like you'd been run over by a Knight Bus. Robin was a deep sleeper though, and had dreamed through most of today until he got up for a late afternoon shift.

In his tiredness he'd forgotten to shave, and was feeling generally unkempt. He considered himself lucky. Some didn't feel human the day after.

Robin entered the cubicle and glanced down at the clipboard sheet at the same time - he almost did a double take. He recognised the name of course. When he'd made the plan to move over, his first instinct had been to see who was heading up the werewolf situation. Bruce Ballentyne was herself a werewolf; unthinkiable in the WALI-influenced world he left behind.

            “Where’s Bones? the redhead looked up, all prepped for examination.

"Out on an emergency," he mumbled without thinking, and then remembered himself. "I'm Healer Louvelle." The tall wizard smiled, drawing the curtain close behind him before he approached.

He offered a hand to shake. The waning full moon was inked on his inner wrist, sensitive to the changes of their actual moon.  "Or you can call me Robin. Pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Ballentyne. I'm a friend of Balfour's," he clarified.

Wasn't it just like Balfour, running around putting out fires? Though probably metaphorical ones these days.

Robin wandered into the entrance hall with hands in pockets, lifting his head as he had a better look at it - the fixtures and fittings, high ceilings that extended to the floor above. He could imagine a big family in here. Huge, in fact. It clarified a few things about his old friend. Robin always had to make an effort to socialise, being an only child. Bal took to it like a fish in water.

"Tea would be fantastic," he turned back to Johann, laughing at the eager dogs. "I've eaten, thanks, on the train. Happy not to disappoint your loyal hounds."


The kitchen was more his speed than anything else he'd seen so far. Even the passageways were full of history - portraits, pictures, sideboards boasting family relics. Here was a warmer, more purposeful space.

Robin sat at one end of the long rustic table, glancing at the windows in front of the sink. It was propped open to let in some of that late summer air and the estate looked peaceful outside.

"You and Balfour were in the states for your honeymoon?" he asked conversationally, arm stretched out along the back of the dining chair. "He mentioned when he wrote back. I've been a real ass about correspondence, haven't really caught up with him. Dropped off when I got bit a few years ago."

A part of him was sure Johann knew all this; Balfour had probably told him. But he was still feeling wrong-footed, and it was easier to start on familiar territory instead of all the other questions he wanted to ask.