Baby, in our wildest moments
We could be the greatest, we could be the greatest
Baby, in our wildest moments
We could be the worst of all

March 30th, 1888 — Fort Lestrange

If she was honest with herself, she had known ever since she'd spotted his belongings but she'd told herself it was just a mistake. One of the servants was overwhelmed by the influx of guests and had accidentally placed Tiberius' things in her room. They couldn't possibly be expected to share a bedroom, not to mention a bed. The idea was preposterous! She couldn't share a bed with him and to force her to was unthinkable. It was definitely a mistake.

Convinced of this, Tig went up early and readied herself for bed. She did so with haste in case a servant arrived to correct the mistake and deliver Tiberius' things to wherever his room was. Should he show up thinking it was his room, she wanted to have already laid claim to it. If anyone was going to get kicked out of the bedroom it was him; giving her the room and being chivalrous was the least he could do. If a servant did eventually come for his things they'd probably be all the more apologetic and grovelling if they found her tucked up in bed. It didn't matter whether it was the same servant who misplaced them or not, upsetting them would be immensely satisfying.

Tig climbed into bed and propped herself up in such a way as to make her look very queenly - or so she thought - and read her novel while awaiting her nighttime visitor be it servant or husband. Eventually the door opened to admit Tiberius and she couldn't help an irritable huff of disappointment. She was certain that there had been no mistake but she tried to convince herself otherwise. Perhaps he thought it'd be quicker to retrieve his belongings himself... "What are you doing here?" She absolutely was not going to share a bedroom with him the entire weekend, he'd have to go elsewhere.

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The following 1 user Likes Antigone Lestrange's post:1 user Likes Antigone Lestrange's post
   Aldous Crouch

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Tiberius had seen her things in the room that morning, and had made a discreet inquiry to the butler to see whether a mistake had been made. It wouldn't do to seem impertinent or ungrateful to Lucius when he was a guest in his house, but it certainly seemed like an oversight to put the two of them in the same bedroom. It wasn't as though anyone in this family had any illusions that the two of them were fond of each other. When he was engaged in family events, Tiberius barely acknowledged his wife's existence, much less went to any pains to spend time with her.

It was not a mistake, however; the butler regretted to inform him that most couples were boarding together, due to the large number of guests. Tiberius considered simply going home at night and avoiding the entire ordeal — it would be convenient enough, with the floo system — but the chances that he might be discovered were too great, and he did not want to risk offending his host or looking unduly suspicious. Besides (and probably the greatest consideration of all, though he wouldn't admit to it) was that he was certain Antigone had drawn the same conclusions he had already, and if he went home to his own bedroom it might appear that he was ceding the room to her. His wife's ego was big enough without feeling as though the mere idea of her presence could scare him away from a bedroom he had every right to.

But he was not relishing the idea of sharing the room with her, by any means. He'd dallied in the downstairs parlor for as long as he feasibly could to avoid having to go to bed (the opposite of his usual solitude-seeking behaviors) until finally there was nothing else to waste time on. He was grimacing before he even opened the door, and her greeting made him no more keen on the idea of spending the night with her. "I'm going to sleep," he said with a derisive look. "Unless you've put on so much weight you don't think the bed will accommodate two."

The following 2 users Like Tiberius Lestrange's post:2 users Like Tiberius Lestrange's post
   Antigone Lestrange, Evelyn Abercrombie

Ordinarily, her appearance wasn't something she was particularly precious about but his words incensed her instantly. "I've put on just the right amount of weight!" she retorted very shrilly, flushing with both anger and embarrassment that she had taken the bait so readily. It wasn't actually a lot of weight, it was barely visible on her scrawny frame, but she was quite content to keep it. Her issue was more with his attitude than what he'd actually said. She could think of no other reason he might be in a sour mood than the sleeping arrangements and how dare he find the prospect of sharing a bed with her unpleasant! She was allowed to be disgruntled because obviously she had to share with him and who wouldn't find that a blight on their mood? She had the short straw, not him!

Tig composed herself a little better and regarded him haughtily, regretting as she did that she had not situated herself in the middle of the bed. "You shall have to find somewhere else to sleep, like a proper gentleman." She tried to discreetly wriggle to a more central point in the bed.

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The following 1 user Likes Antigone Lestrange's post:1 user Likes Antigone Lestrange's post
   Tiberius Lestrange

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Tiberius had been expecting this, or at least something akin to it. Antigone could never just do things the easy way; she insisted on fighting even when there was no point to doing so and nothing to be gained if she won, which she never did. The fact that he had seen it coming, however, did not make him any more inclined to be charitable in his response, not when she had attempted to kick him out of the one bed in the room. It didn't make it any better, either, that she had no possible way to actually make her ornery retort a reality. The attitude alone was enough to incense him.

"The hell I will," he snapped irritably. "This is my room, and you're my wife."

  

Her objection to sharing a bed with him was so strong that she was sorely tempted to be the one to insist on sleeping elsewhere but that would be losing on a grander scale than merely tolerating his presence in the bed. If he was equally dreading the prospect then staying put would at least render it a draw.

"It's our room." She wanted to protest what he'd said further but there was no argument to be won on whether she was his wife or not. As it was, correcting him to a shared pronoun was arguably worse than leaving it alone. "Maybe the bed is too small after all," she muttered angrily into the pages of her book.

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Tiberius scoffed at the use of the word our. "You're only here in your capacity as my wife," he pointed out, turning his back to the bed as he approached the vanity and began to undress. He simply set things on the counter top as he removed them, trusting that a servant would follow along at some point tomorrow and store them all back where they belonged in his luggage — perhaps a presumptuous assumption given the number of guests, but he was hardly going to do it himself.

"It isn't as though anyone wanted your company for its own sake," he said as he removed his tie. He might have said anyone in this family, but he didn't think what he was saying applied only to the Lestranges; Antigone was, from what he could tell, unpleasant to be around no matter who you were. He was aware, rather vaguely, that she did have some friends, but the notion of anyone choosing to spend time with her entirely baffled him. Then again, the notion of friendship generally baffled him, so perhaps Antigone was in good company on that count.

  

Antigone glared at him. The worst part was that he wasn't wrong and they both knew it. There wasn't even any point trying to suggest his family might find her a real treat at social gatherings. "As if anyone here really wants to spend a weekend with you either, it'd just be overtly rude if you were excluded!" She supposed his family might genuinely like him but for what reasons, she couldn't say. As far as she was aware he didn't initiate social activities with any of his cousins or anyone else for that matter. At least it had slipped her notice if it had, not that she paid much attention to his social calendar.

"Anyway, I'm a delight, it's not my fault if none of you appreciate me." Tig could say this quite in earnest, quite confident that she had the capacity to be exceedingly good company, that she chose not to be was neither here nor there.

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She may or may not have been correct in saying that some of the Lestranges might have opted to exclude him had there been an option to do so, but frankly, Tiberius didn't care enough to ponder or argue the point. He knew he had the respect of the relatives that he cared at all to cultivate respect from — Lucius, Tatiana. Seneca even had her schoolgirl crush on him, or had as of last summer. Whether people like Cassius enjoyed his company or not was so far removed from the list of things he was concerned about it was almost laughable.

He did shoot her an openly skeptical look when she called herself a delight, but decided not to comment on it overtly. "It would be delightful if you would stop talking," he suggested as he removed his shirt and fished a nightshirt out of the luggage left by the vanity. "And turned out the light."

Not that he had any qualms about getting undressed in front of her — he'd gotten her pregnant twice, so it was a little late to develop some false modesty — but he didn't need the light in the room to finish undressing, and he wanted to end this interaction as quickly as possible. Hopefully she would stick to her side of the bed and not flail around in her sleep. If she did, Tiberius might simply push her out of the bed. Accidentally, of course.

  

Tig grimaced, whether at his demands or his changing of clothes signalling his imminent retiring, even she didn't know. She nestled into the pillows a little more and tried to take up more space in the bed than she was already. "No," she announced bluntly. "I'm trying to read, I need the light." Not that she could focus on her book anyway, the fact it was fairly dull didn't help.

She could suddenly imagine him trying to climb into bed with her, as he surely would in a matter of minutes, and the thought was repulsive enough to renew her grimace for a moment. "If you have a problem with that I'm sure you can find somewhere else to sleep." He wasn't going to though, was he? "You must've had your own bedroom in this house at one time, go there." Somehow she didn't think his old bedroom had been preserved as some sort of shrine but she couldn't seem to help but to show how very little she wanted him in the same bed. It would probably have the opposite effect but she doubted encouraging him into the bed would repel him either.

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"It seems far more expedient for you to find another place to read," Tiberius pointed out. He wasn't even being difficult; there were literally dozens of open rooms in house that she could find to sit and read in, in which her light would be disturbing no one with the possibility of a sleepwalking servant. The beds, on the other hand, were all taken, as was evidenced by their being put together in the first place.

"You needn't get dressed, just put on a dressing gown," he said with a shrug as he continued to change. Everyone she might encounter was, after all, at least theoretically family, no matter how distant they might be.

He did not comment on the state of his old bedroom; for one, it had not really been his since before his uncle had moved to Hogsmeade in 1877, since by the time of the fire he had moved on to his father's estate at Oakshire Hall. He had only lived here a little less than two years, and he had been quite young. His old bedroom was likely only half the size of this one, although it hadn't felt small at the time. He didn't know what had become of it, and wondered a bit sulkily whether this year would see the infant Cicero interred there.

  

Even if she had been eager to read her book, she had no intention of leaving the bed to do it. She hadn't made sure to get there before him so she could stake her claim and then just abandon it. Supposing he didn't refuse her sleeping accommodation on returning, he'd probably hog two thirds of the bed anyway.

"If anyone's going anywhere, it's not going to be me." Of that she was adamant, but she did wonder if she'd revise her stance once he started encroaching on her bed space. Maybe it would be better if it was dark when he got in the bed, it would be easier to convince herself no one was there provided he kept to himself and didn't move. "You'll have to see to the light yourself if you want it out." That was the closest she intended to conceding anything to him tonight. Except for maybe a few inches of the bed, she doubted he'd acquiesce to a night on the edge of the mattress.

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Had the light presented any actual inconvenience to him, he might have argued. As it was, he finished changing, extinguished the gas light with a spell, and placed his wand on the bedside table. He then slipped between the sheets, wordlessly and rather rudely shoving his wife back to her half of the bed.

  

As soon as the light went out she grunted in annoyance and threw the book off the bed. She wasn't going to move over for the sake of reaching the nightstand. Not that it mattered. Rather than ask her to move, he simply started to get in. As much as Tig wanted to keep him out, she reflexively flinched away from him as he started to push her aside.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Her furious outburst sounded far more like panic and indignation than it was supposed to. She gave him as wide a berth as she could manage without hanging off the side of the bed. She scowled furiously at him through the dark. She wished she didn't have to look at him at all but the thought of turning her back on him made her deeply uneasy. She didn't know why exactly, he probably just wanted to sleep and get the weekend over as much as she did.

She couldn't sleep like this. If he even moved in the slightest she was sure she was going to hurl herself across the room like a cat dunked in water. "You- You stay over there," she sputtered. Had there really been a tremor in her voice or was it her imagination? She hoped it was the latter, she was already convinced that he was able to hear her heart hammering away in her chest like an express train.

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Tiberius rolled his eyes when Antigone flinched away from him so melodramatically. It wasn't as though he had shoved her violently enough cause such a reaction. Really, he thought he had done the bare minimum in order to assure he had free reign of his half of the bed, since it wasn't as though his obstinate wife would have responded to him simply asking her to move (not to mention that his pride would hardly allow him to ask for something that she ought to simply know to give him).

"I intend to," he shot back, turning his back to Antigone and pulling the sheet up to his shoulder. He would have left it at that, except that when she spoke again her tone was so strange that even he couldn't help but notice and wonder what had gotten into her. She sounded... fearful? That didn't make any sort of sense. What did she think was going to happen? It wasn't as though he'd been threatening her lately, or as though she had even been very responsive the last time he had threatened her. When she'd snuck into his study in the middle of the night he had forcibly thrown her out into the hallway, which was the closest they had come to physical violence since the death of the thing that ought to have been his son, and far from seeming appropriately cowed by the gesture, she had laughed. So what had gotten into her now?

"What's the matter with you?" he asked suspiciously, watching her shadowy outline over his shoulder.

  

She was ready to lapse into tense silence that would hopefully result in an eventual loss of consciousness. It wasn't ideal but she was probably as comfortable as she was going to get. Then he had to go and ruin it because of course he did.

"Nothing!" she barked defensively. After a moment or so she had an array of insulting responses she would have liked to have thrown at him instead but it was too late. Tig suddenly felt an urge to kick him that she only failed to act upon on account of an even greater urge to remain firmly on her side of the bed, toes and all. Instead she took her edge of the sheets firmly under arm and abruptly rolled over so she was no longer facing him, tugging them sharply along with her. Except now she could see him. She rolled back to her former position and made no attempt to minimize her movements as she did so.

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Whatever had come over her, Tiberius was not so concerned that he would press the matter after she refused to tell him. Really, concerned was the wrong word entirely; it would be a stretch to say he was even befuddled by it, since that implied a certain degree of caring. If he had been able to ignore her emotional status entirely for the weekend, he doubtless would have chosen to do so, but as it was he was stuck in the same room with her for however many hours and had to loiter in this strange atmosphere she was exuding. Being near her was like being on the edge of a cloud of some sort of gas and being able to tell that there was an odor, but not what it was or what was causing it. It was annoying, but at this hour he determined it didn't merit further investigation.

He did, however, slowly but firmly pull the sheets back towards his side of the bed when she rudely yanked them off.