Disclaimer: Would I ever have let a werewolf eat Bill's face? Of course not, so I must not own Harry Potter.
A/N: Having never written anything Bill or Fleur, let alone BillFleur, I'm wondering if I did this right. This was written in response to literary lemming's (known as mnemosyne23 here) request for more BillFleur CharlieGabby fics. Fleur's PoV, Post-HBP, BillFleur of course. Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.
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He laughed at all I dared to praise Edna St. Vincent Millay
And broke my heart, in little ways.
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He does not believe her when she says the scars do not bother her.
He doesn't believe when she says that he looks more handsome to her now than he did before. He doesn't believe her when she says that the scars are merely another way to show the world how brave he is, though she herself never did need a reminder.
He doesn't believe and she knows it. She thinks it might have been some time since he last did.
She can see it in the way he tenses whenever she tries to sooth away his doubt or reassure him. She can see the way he struggles to grin and make light of her words, the way he shrugs it all off and switches the subject to something decidedly safe ( 'Mum wants us over for dinner.' Or 'I really ought to mow the lawn.').
Sometimes she catches him looking at her, little side glances that are nothing like the full out stares of open adoration he bestows on her, for the most part because his eyes aren't smiling and there, just barely noticeable before he looks away, the slightest sign of anxiety. She knows that he looks at her in those moments and sees only a slender frame and pale skin and, what he in his own words, along with many others, so often called perfection (which she never actually thought complimentary but from his mouth found far more tolerable). And it is in these moments that she is filled with the desire to yell, to stamp her foot until she is red in the face, every bit the perpetual child, and force him to understand that in her own eyes, and the eyes of all those who love him, he has not changed.
"You are perfect to me." She tells him one night, coming up behind him in the bathroom mirror, pale arms wrapping around his chest, cheek to the back of his shoulder. The murmur of her words echoes slightly in the room, still awkward and clumsy to her own ears despite his assurances that she's improving daily, and she feels his chest hitch beneath her hands and the sound of his laughter sweeps away any remainder of her own voice.
"Love, if I'm perfect I would hate to see what exactly is imperfect in your eyes."
He kisses her than and she feels the swiftness with which his laughter, underlined with doubt and self hatred, assails the most tender spots of her heart.
She kisses him back hoping soon he'll see himself for what he truly is, afraid that one day he won't believe her even when she says 'I love you'.
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End
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