034. Sleep

Portia Bancroft was well aware that she is an exacting woman.

She liked things done a certain way and despite the affectionately exasperated looks she sometimes got from Baxter, she was in no hurry to change. One needed to have standards or everything just goes to hell. Sugar must be spooned carefully into a teacup before pouring the water and adding the teabag; her food musts be cut into perfectly square bites; her shoes were arranged in her closet according to color and subcategorized according to date purchased. Order was very important to her.

She applied no less exacting standards to Baxter, expecting only the best. Baxter should always be at the top of the class, scholarly and socially, the most handsome, the best dressed, and, it goes without saying, have the finest woman on his arm. He was meant for perfection -- especially when he finally cut his hair and let her teach him how to tame fluffy unruliness into perfectly coiffed hair befitting the Viscount and an appropriate partner for her brother became her number one priority. There were simple ways of dividing the Ignatiuses out of the masses. It shouldn't have been difficult at all.

She made up the list of requirements as she went.

First, she must possess charm and wit. She must be determined to reach her goals, but her goals must always be supportive of those of her brother and their esteemed family. She must be punctual, loving, and worldly. Above all, she should be the embodiment of a lady.

She found there was no shortage of young ladies at Cambridge but, oddly, something was always lacking in them, always not quite right. It left her unendingly frustrated.

First there was Charmaine, the traditional girl-next-door whom she had always pushed him towards, always expected him to marry. Her manners were perfect and her background flawless. She dressed well and had admirable dining etiquette. Amelia, a girl Portia herself had introduced him to, was proper, polite, and titled; she stood every time Baxter left the table and stood again when he returned. Eleanor was charming and independent; eventually, when she had returned to her suspicions that it was, indeed, a man that Baxter needed and not a woman, she even pushed him towards his roommate, poor but brilliant, full of talent and passion and unrealized potential.

Yet none of them were right. They always failed the final test.

One night Portia was settling in for a quiet evening at home. Their parents had, as was their custom, set off for an emissary in some far-off nation, checkbooks in hand, Baxter had cooped himself up in his room for the evening in preparation for his examination on tax laws in the morning, and the servants had been permitted off duty early lest they disturb Baxter in his studies. The estate was silent save for the storm raging outside, the sound of rain soothing to Portia as she sifted through a  pile of pre-runway designs she considered ordering.

Then, suddenly, the ring of the doorbell resounded through the house.

Portia had surreptitiously cast a silencing charm on her brother's room, preventing him from any distraction that might arise in the house, and apparently, she had been right in her warning. The sound startled Portia, who dropped a sheaf of papers that scattered at her feet. "Who on Earth could possibly be outside in this weather?" she muttered to herself, annoyed, and walked briskly down the spiral marble steps. She regretted allowing the servants to retreat to their private quarters early as she crossed the foyer to the door, opened it, and found a shivering mass of wet clothes waiting on the threshold.

Upon closer inspection, she realized it was a young man with brilliant red hair (probably Irish, how tasteless) in shabby clothing unlike that of any company she or her brother kept. His hair hung damply in his face, which sported a nasty scrape on one cheek.

"Whatever you're here to sell, I'm afraid I'm not interested," Portia sighed, making no attempt to mask her distaste, while the young man tossed his hair out of his face, sending a spray of droplets her way.

Her distaste turned into painfully obvious scorn. "Oh," she hissed, "You."

He rolled his eyes, dark blue in contrast to the brightness of those of hers and her brother's just as she remembered, and said, "Let me in, Bancroft."

Her fingers closed on the door, readying to slam it. "I don't really think you're in any position to make demands."

"I was wondering if you would be so kind as to let me in," he said through gritted teeth, tugging his sopping coat tighter around himself and forcing on a smile. "I can't Apparate out of here because my wand broke and it's freezing."

"If you cannot Apparate, simply call someone. Oh wait, you can't; I forgot that you had forsaken the only person who could ever tolerate you."

Ciarán looked prepared to lash out at her, but he seemed to recognize that he hardly had the advantage in this situation and was, for all intents and purposes, at Portia's mercy. "Portia."

She sighed; Baxter was blissfully unaware in his room and would not have to know anything if Portia got her way -- and Portia knew that she always got her way -- and she couldn't very well live with herself if a man (even if he was Irish and thus one of the lowest forms of man there was) froze to death on her grounds. "I suppose your presence is mildly tolerable while Baxter is not home and you cannot crush him again," she lied, "But stay on the doormat until I get a towel and do not, under any circumstances, drip on my floor."

Ciarán rolled his eyes and gingerly crossed into the room. "You're out of here the moment this clears up," Portia warned over her shoulder as she hurried to fetch a towel. He was silent when she returned and tossed some towels his way, standing a ways back to avoid stray droplets. When his dampness was somewhat under control, she gestured him towards one of the family rooms.

"You could just use magic and send me on my merry way," he said, obviously bitter that he had supposedly missed Baxter's presence.

"I cannot, unfortunately," she replied pointedly, "Our wands are locked in a safe." That was, much to her dismay, true; her parents had given her her wand only at her request so she could enclose Baxter in focused silence and then had sealed her wand away once more before they departed that afternoon. "Now stay put while I find you some clothing."

Obviously, she could not dress him in Baxter's clothing, for that would mean entering Baxter's bedroom and besides, she wasn't about to give Ciarán anything of her brother's. Instead, she disappeared into her parents' bedroom, gathering only the articles of clothing she was assured her father would not miss: an old Oxford sweatshirt, a silly t-shirt clearly meant only for those of the lower classes, and--to her dismay when she procured them from the chest of drawers in the master bedroom--a pair of sweatpants. She would pretend she was still thoroughly unaware that her father owned sweatpants. When she returned, Ciarán stared at the pile of loungewear she'd thrust into his hands, brow crinkled as if he were terribly, horribly confused.

"Clothes?"

"You think I am going to allow you to soak my home in your wet rags? Please. The sofa is made of suede."

Realization seemed to dawn on his face as she shoved him towards a bathroom to change. Portia then went on a hunt for a first aid kit, very certain she had never had a reason to use one before. When she emerged triumphant, she found Ciarán sulking on the sofa, arms crossed over his chest. It was then that she noticed how long his hair had gotten. Portia scrunched her nose in disgust before braving entering the room.

"Where's Baxter?" Ciarán asked, evidently keeping the words between himself and Portia at a minimum lest she throw him out into the cold again.

"No where," Portia snapped, grasping his face roughly in one hand and turning it toward her. She began to dab at it with antiseptic, none too gently. He winced; she dabbed harder.

"I think as his best friend, I deserve to know," he glared, failing to suppress the anger in his voice. Portia merely scoffed.

"Don't flatter yourself, dear," Portia said, peeling the wrapping off a band-aid and covering the scrape on his cheek. The band-aid had a cartoon kitten on it. "You abandoned him five years ago. You are thoroughly unaccepting of his lifestyle. You have caused him nothing but pain since we left school, and he is, overall, much happier without you. So, please, I'm dying to know, what qualifies you to be his best friend?"

A dark flush had spread over Ciarán's face as she spoke. "What do you know?" he spat. "You never paid any attention to him, to what he wanted, just to the idea of who he was--"

"Do not start with me, Coileáin," she snapped.

"No, Bancroft, do not start with me."

A deadly silence filled the family room as they glared at each other. Portia said nothing, but her thoughts were working quickly, trying to decide if it was worth it to test Ciarán like everyone else. It was one way to prove to him that Ciarán held no place in Baxter's -- in their lives anymore.

It wasn't a complicated test. It didn't involve an elaborate ruse or an impossible feat. It was just a very small, silly lie and it was surprising how few boys noticed it.

"I assume you purchased his gift in his favorite color," she had asked Charmaine once, before hers and Baxter's birthday. She clarified with the lie, "Red." Charmaine's eyes filled immediately with panic and she made a hasty getaway to exchange the product.

"Of course you've read his favorite book," she'd said to Amelia with exaggerated surprise. She stuttered a bit before she said, "You know, This Side of Paradise." Amelia grinned then and they had a rousing conversation about Gatsby; Portia didn't bother to correct her that anyone who knew Baxter knew he would never go for an author as tragic as Fitzgerald.

She thought the roommate, Daniel, would be harder to trick, but he was so nervous and unsure he'd agreed to whatever she said. Rule number seven: Baxter's perfect suitor must have a backbone.

"What do you want, a list?" Ciarán snarled, "Everything I know about Baxter that you never bothered to learn?"

"There is nothing," Portia cut him off again, "We are twins." Portia stared at him, dressed in those silly sweats she'd picked out expressly for embarrassment, a Hello Kitty band-aid on his face, his hair long and unruly -- and she realized she didn't have to test him. Or, rather, he'd already been tested many, many times and passed without her even noticing.

Perhaps she did not notice as much as she thought she did.

"How did you end up on my doorstep, Ciarán?"

Ciarán sighed deeply, his eyes narrowed. "I tried to Apparate into his room but somehow ended up at the edge of your grounds."

She decided not to tell him that that was because she had set up anti-Apparation wards around the house shortly after Ciarán had disappeared and broken Baxter's heart, not wanting him to come blazing back into her brother's life and hurt him more. "No," she breathed, shaking her head, "Why?"

"Tomorrow is his--your--birthday," Ciarán shrugged.

Portia pursed her lips, unimpressed by his answer. Maybe he was failing the test after all. "We have had several birthdays since you left without so much as a card, thank you very much."

"I was thinking," Ciarán offered lamely; Portia could tell he was trying his hardest to keep himself guarded or whatever it was that jaded redheads did when they made poor attempts at preventing themselves from unburdening their souls. "I wanted to talk to him. Not that I owe you any explanation." He focused very steadily on the coffee table.

"Well, you missed him. Too bad for you."

Ciarán stood. "I should probably--"

"It's late," Portia said, smiling privately to herself, "And the storm hasn't let up. I can deign to allow you to stay the night, I suppose."

Portia felt oddly maternal stirrings as she set up one of the downstairs guest bedrooms, piling on unnecessary amounts of blankets and quilts and comforters and pillows. It had made sudden sense to her, the hopefulness in Ciarán's eyes, some of it broken and a lot of it crushed, and the way that Baxter had cried on her shoulder after he and Ciarán fought and then a week later when Ciarán's sisters had told him he had packed up and left. Ciarán's face had softened from its clenched jaw and imperturbable expression into something inexplicably sweet.

Well, Baxter was her brother. She still wanted only the best for him, and she still had one last test.

The next afternoon she sat solemnly in the foyer sipping her tea, waiting for one male to wake up and another to return from school. With timing worthy of a pedestrian television show, they appeared at the same moment -- Ciarán stumbling out of the room more mussed than he had been the night before, Baxter breezing in with a coffee cup and a smile.

"How did you sleep?" Portia asked Ciarán, ignoring Baxter's completely dumbfounded awe.

"Actually? Horribly," he said, eyes locked on Baxter, who did little to hide the welling in his eyes, "Hardly closed my eyes the whole night."

"That's dreadful," Portia sighed, hiding her smile behind her teacup, "There must be something wrong with the bed." She gathered her cup and the paper, pecking Baxter on the cheek before removing herself from the room, procuring a small diamond stud of an earring from where she had buried it beneath the mattress and leaving them to do whatever they did. It wasn't her business.

In the day to come, there would be arguing that Portia covered with music and then a more awkward cacophony of sounds that forced her to leave the house entirely. She was quite content to do so, certain her brother would be fine, and rather hoping they might settle into a quieter happiness in the future.

Which, she mused as she walked, was probably very unlikely.