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melanie-ohara · 3 months

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I'll Be Your All For Now

Whumpuary2024, Day 27 - Prompt: Sleep Deprivation

Lord Pendleton is drunk, and Wallace Higgins takes it out on Cecelia

I hate Wallace. Fuck Wallace.

AO3 Here

It had been easier before young Lady Emily had arrived. Wallace had only ever insisted on Master Pendleton's room being perfectly cleaned and the bar neatly swept, and didn't mind if the other rooms gathered a little dust. The soon to be Empress changed all that. With her child's curiosity taking her all over the Hound Pits, Wallace insisted that every room as well as the courtyard and the street outside be spotless at all times. Of course, Wallace didn't muck in himself: he was a butler, which limited his responsibilities to bringing Lord Pendleton wine and listening to him rave drunkenly about his brothers. Cecelia knew he had to keep his fingernails clean or Pendleton would throw a tumbler at his head, but she wished he would at least pretend he felt bad about putting her and Lydia to work at all hours of the day.

The first time he made her work through the night, Lady Emily had tripped on a stone and skinned her knee. The girl had hopped back to her feet and carried on playing, but Wallace was insistent it not happen again, and he made Cecelia walk the yard all night with a lantern, collecting any stone that might do the young lady injury and tossing it in the Wrenhaven river. By the time she finished, the sun had risen over the water and, despite the beauty and tranquility of the river at dawn, she was already late to start preparing breakfast. After almost thirty-six hours, she collapsed into her bunk with her eyes aching to close.

It didn't stop. Pendleton grew more and more belligerent the more he drank and the more assassinations he ordered, and Wallace took the brunt of his short temper. The day Pendleton bruised his face, he ordered Cecelia to sweep the building from top to bottom twice, which meant waiting for Lord Corvo to wake and leave for his nightly excursion to the city. Lydia was safe from his ire, of course - she had Havelock's favour, after helping him run the bar for so long. She even pretended not to know the Overseer Martin spent most nights in the Admiral's quarters, when she wasn't there herself. Wallace's ire grew stronger and his reasons for keeping Cecelia working at all hours became less and less convincing, until she finally decided he must just like doing it - he liked it when she could barely keep her eyes open, or fell asleep standing up and leaning on a broom in the cellar. Maybe it made him feel better to pass on Pendleton's ire. He had never liked being reminded that ultimately he was lower than the nobles he served, so he had decided to show Cecelia that she was lower than him. And because she was the bottom rung of the ladder, with nothing below her but the rats, there was nothing she could do about it except suffer.

After a week, Cecelia barely knew what she was doing any more. Her body moved mechanically - certainly stiffly enough to be some kind of Sokolov automaton - while her mind drifted. She barely even slept when she did make it to bed now, since Wallace could call on her at any time to clean the toilets or unblock a sink, or go down into the wine cellar and look for a bottle she'd never be able to find because she couldn't read the labels. She lost track of time, and Wallace chastised her for sweeping the same spot for an hour, or staring slackjawed at a wall while holding a cleaned glass. He never raised his voice, which she thought was strange, as Pendleton was always screaming. Wallace's cruelty was quiet.

"Cecelia, isn't it?"

The voice that drifted to her through the haze was soft and polite. She'd heard Callista Curnow speak from time to time, around the grounds of the pub, but she mostly only talked to the nobility. As a governess, she was above the other servants, though technically her duties fell under Wallace's purview. She probably wasn't even aware of how tyrannical the butler had become.

"Yes miss," Cecelia said, standing up straight and going to put her hands behind her back politely, only to find she was holding a mop. "Oh," she said.

"Are you quite alright?" Callista asked, resting her hand on Cecelia's shoulder.

She managed a weak smile. "Yes miss," she said. Glancing around, she remembered that Wallace had sent her to mop the floor at the base of the stairs. As Callista nodded and took a step back, Cecelia went to dip the mop back in the water bucket. She knocked it over instead, and the brown water sloshed out over Callista's shiny black shoes.

Callista gasped in shock as it splashed up her legs and hopped backwards out of the water's reach. Cecelia stared at it for a moment, and then broke.

"I'm so sorry!" she wailed, "Miss Callista, I'm such a clumsy fool, I didn't mean it!"

"No, no, it's quite alright," Callista said, but it was too late now. Wallace would have Cecelia start over the second he found out, and probably a whole list of other chores too that would keep her so busy she'd have to choose between a few minutes' fitful sleep or getting something to eat.

She let out a choked wail and fell to her knees in the dirty water, but still reached out for the bucket. Maybe if she could clean it up quickly, it wouldn't be so bad. Unless Callista told Wallace about her ruined shoes, of course. The governess was picking her way gingerly across the floor, trying to use only the tips of her shoes to step in the water as she came to Cecelia's side.

"Please don't tell Wallace," she managed to gasp out through heaving sobs. "I have to get it sorted out."

She was surprised when Callista kneeled in front of her and took her hands, pushing them firmly away from the toppled bucket and into Cecelia's lap. "I promise I won't," she said. "Now hush, it's only a spilled bucket."

"No, you don't understand!" Cecelia moaned, but Callista shook her head.

"I understand you're upset, Cecelia," she said softly.

She peered at her face, as if she was seeing her for the first time. Callista had three spotless and identical uniforms, which Lydia was in charge of washing. Cecelia only had the one jacket and trousers, and two threadbare shirts she had darned until there was almost nothing left of the original fabric. Where Callista's skin was smooth and clean, Cecelia's was pockmarked and filthy from a lifetime of small meals and endless work. And then there were her eyes. They were constantly bloodshot now, and ringed with circles so dark it looked like the makeup she had always wanted but never been able to afford.

"You must be exhausted," she said.

Cecelia shook her head and looked away from her eyes. "I'm fine, miss," she said. "I can still work."

Callista stood up suddenly, and held out her hand for Cecelia to take. "Not a chance. Come with me."

The only way to access Lady Emily's tower was through the Royal Protector's room, and Cecelia was terrified of tripping and waking him as Callista led her through by the wrist. She didn't dare look down as they walked over the bridge, which was built by Piero but still looked rickety and unstable, and she could scarcely stand it as Callista let go of her hand and left her to sway in the breeze while she opened the door to the child's room.

"Hello," Lady Emily said breezily as the two of them stepped inside. She was sitting on the floor with a doll and a tea set, but she stood up when they entered. "Oh, hello," she added, with a polite wave when she saw Cecelia, who curtsied. She wasn't sure how to do it, and the girl's giggle told her she had done it wrong.

"Go and play outside, Emily," Callista said, far more firmly than Cecelia expected from someone talking to an Empress, but the child seemed happy enough to take her doll and hurry out of the room. She was humming to herself as she skipped along the rickety bridge to her Protector's room. "Now," Callista said, turning to Cecelia again. "You need rest."

The adrenaline of standing outside so close to the unprotected edge of the building over a fall high enough to kill her twice over was waning now, and Cecelia had to admit the two beds in the room looked incredibly inviting. "I can't," she protested weakly. "Wallace would - "

"Wallace is not allowed in here," Callista reminded her. "Only Lydia. I'll tell him I've sent you on an errand. Emily always needs more pencils and drawing paper after all."

Cecelia wasn't sure what to say, but she felt tears of gratitude escape her eyes and she wiped at them with her sleeve before she started sobbing again.

"There, there," Callista said, pulling her into a gentle embrace. "Get some rest," she murmurred against the shell of Cecelia's ear. "I'll have a word with Wallace."

Cecelia shook her head but couldn't bring herself to argue when she could see the bed over Callista's shoulder. It looked the way food looked to the starving. When Callista pulled away from the hug she stumbled towards it with an eagerness that would be embarrassing if she wasn't so desperate to lay down her head. Callista waited with her until she had pulled the blankets closed and settled against the pillow with a sigh. She wanted to apologise to the governess for the state of her clothes and how she would have to change the bedclothes before she herself went to bed, but before she could get the words out of her mouth, the warmth of sleep had claimed her.

Callista smiled down at a curl of red hair spilling across Cecelia's forehead, and then turned and let her sleep.

#dishonored #fanfic #writing #cecelia #callista curnow #hound pits pub #sleep deprivation #whumpuary2024 #hurt/comfort #whumpuaryno14

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