“But… Dad. Did you know plants convert radiant energy into chemical energy?”
“Scorpius”
“Wait….chemical energy? Huh. From where?”
“Sun,” Scorpius replied, distracted.
“Harry, don’t help him.”
“But, if that’s true, then—”
Draco sighed and sat down at his place. Spaghetti was gross cold. He wasn’t going to wait again. He smiled fondly as he picked up his fork and watched Harry pull Scorpius’ book into his lap.
because my brain decided this scene apparently needed to be drarrified before I could move on with my day (T, 350 words) I apologize in advance.
A box sits threateningly on the coffee table, wrapped in shiny red “Happy Christmas” paper. It’s June.
“Pansy? What’s this?”
Pansy licks a fingertip, turning the page of Witch Weekly without looking at Draco. “It appears to be a gift.”
Draco sucks in a breath. “No. No, Pansy.” Whatever is in this box, he just knows it can’t be good.
“There’s a note.” Pansy smirks at him, one perfect eyebrow arched.
Draco,
Happy three-week anniversary! I have something special planned for tonight. Wear comfortable clothes…and this!
Yours,
Harry
Draco’s stomach can’t decide whether to sink or float. On one hand, it’s very sweet. On the other… “Three-week anniversary?”
Pansy snorts. “Gryffindors,” she mumbles derisively, as if she hasn’t been fucking Ginny for months.
Maybe if he just leaves it; but no, opening it in frontof Harry would surely be worse. “Pansy,” he whines.
“Just open it, Draco.”
He huffs, flicking a spell at the box. They both lean in to see what’s inside. His eyes snap to hers, which are filled with delight. “A helmet!” she squeals.
“Pansy, no. No,” Draco insists, as if she has any control over the situation. He pats his perfectly-coiffed hair absentmindedly.
There’s a knock at the door. Draco glares daggers at Pansy before plastering on a smile and opening the door.
“Did you open it?” Harry’s enthusiasm is bursting out of him as he enters their flat; he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“The helmet?” Draco’s gaze slides to Pansy briefly and then back. “I did!”
“Do you like it? I picked it out just for you, your favourite colour!”
“Ilove it,” Draco lies.
“I thought we could take a ride on my motorcycle; I brought a picnic and everything.”
“A picnic!” Pansy chimes in. “That’s so romantic.” Draco wishes he had mastered non-verbal hexes.
Harry beams. Draco melts, kissing Harry to remind himself that he’s in love and that he needs to stop being a brat.
“Let me get changed.”
“Something comfortable!” Harry calls after him.
Draco sighs. He’ll ruin his hair, but only for this gorgeous, thoughtful man of his.
POV: you’re painting some graffiti on a wall when His Grace, the Duke of Ankh, Sam Vimes comes strolling up behind you and leans on your shoulder. He considers it for a moment while he rummages in a pocket for a cigar.
“Letters need to be bigger,” he tells you while he lights a match. “And make sure to underline ‘ALL’ and ‘BASTARDS.’ Wouldn’t want anyone missing the point.”
(Author’s Notes: i started this part over like…15 times. i had too many ideas and had the hardest time sorting them out. then work got just ridiculous and once again, i had no time or energy to write. so…a month later, here’s a very long VSS installment to make up for my tardiness and bring an end to this story.)
(dave malloy quotes from “pierre and andrey” and “the great comet of 1812″ from…well…”the great comet of 1812.”) (ALSO, a LOT of inspiration from a certain scene at the end of the movie “walk the line.” but i can’t say more than that becuase spoilers.) (if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know EXACTLY which scene i’m talking about.) (also also, the quote for this installment comes from “wuthering heights.”)
~~~
“As slow as you need.” That’s what Rose had promised Hux.
“Slow” implies time. Time enough to ease into things, know each other better as friends and more. Time to catalog a scrapbook of firsts—first date, first hug, first kiss, all the firsts beyond. Time to compile lists of likes and dislikes, to discover things about her, and about himself.
“Slow” implies days. Weeks. Months, even.
But…there’s a war going on.
And then they don’t have months, or weeks, or even days.
Happy belated birthday, early Christmas present my beloved, amazing, smut soul sister @sitp-recs. A toast to the soul I will dance the night away flinging our panties into the night! You truly inspire me, my amazing muse! May you receive all the kisses and love and smut you so truly deserve!
For those who are new, the obsession Liv and I have with the following troupes: semi-public smut, motorcycle smut, banter smut, hair pulling smut, lip biting smut…IFYKYK ;)
The dust hasn’t even settled, but there was a lull in between the action. Their fellow aurors were distracted enough after the arrests that Harry had the time to grab Draco and hide away in the darkness of the piss small alley where he had parked his bike several hours earlier. The stench didn’t last long, his senses overwhelmed by the rich musk of his partner, Draco blocking out everything but the heat between them. There was frenzied pushing and pulling, scratches that turned into bites and scrapes of teeth against skin. Even the cool muggy air of muggle London couldn’t make his skin shiver the way Draco’s fingers did. Harry’s ass slid up against the leather seat of his bike and he could feel the metal creak and moan. He muttered a stabilizing spell and vanished their robes in a single hurried breath
“Show off” Draco mutters as he hikes up Harry’s leg, pressing their heat together.
Harry grins, hissing as a stinging pull yanks his head back, his hair knotted in between vice like fingers. “Bet you can’t make me moan your name Ferret Face.”
Steel eyes narrow as Harry watches swollen lips hide behind sharp teeth, “That’s because I’ll have you screaming it, Potty.”
25 years old and drifting through jobs without a mission. I don’t know if this program thing is going anywhere, but if Doom is success, then I could be the next big thing.
My steady supply of rock and rap keeps me sane in these moments, and I don’t have my old band around to sharpen my drumming skills, so it’s been a drag. Not even going into the political shit going on. My philosophy of voting the current guy out of office every 4 years is better than getting sucked into that rich snob world.
This town really sucks the fun out of you, and I’m looking for that next kick in the ass to get me out, having some fun before I get chained down and have my hair cut. If I have to settle down, I don’t mind if it’s with the cute record store owner with the raven tattoo.
Something cool happened the other day at least. The blue house by my apartment started glowing. I thought it was the TV but it was the entire thing! Not my business either way, but I’d laugh my ass off if it’s aliens.
that winter in camelot is the coldest merlin can remember. the snow lays coffin deep in the courtyard, and when he tries using his magic to keep gwen’s chambers warm, she scolds him for giving her preferential treatment. he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of warming the entire castle, much less anything beyond that, so he settles for enchanting the stole leon had gifted her in secret and using his energy to keep every fire he can going.
it’s all he can do, these days, to keep a fire going. gaius has him on a number of draughts and dried herbs he’s carefully stored since the summer solstice, but they do little in the way of keeping merlin’s heart from stopping every time he sees a flash of golden hair.
it’s in the wake of the third snowfall that he hears from his mother.
ealdor is blanketed in white, thatch roofs bending and bowing under the freezing weight, and there’s a teenaged boy he recognises in the unsettling, removed sort of way adding another log to his mother’s dying fire.
his knees give out. a familiar feeling rises in his chest: that he wishes he could make his mother’s bed more comfortable, give her the plushness only royals are privy to. he thinks of gwen’s stole, of her lavish pillows, of her fire raging, and thinks of his mother, dying on a bed of straw.
she’s days away from death, if that. it will be the second person he’s lost this year, and merlin has come to terms with eternity’s cold grip, no longer has the fight left in him to uncurl its fingers from its tight grasp.
he grips her frail fingers and does everything he can to keep the fire going.
to say, “i will never forget you.”
she smiles at him. “that,” she tells him, “is how i know you love me.”
it takes him a few more winters to understand, fully, what his mother meant. in those years, he loses, and loses, and loses, until grief is a friend that walks beside him. when he realises that death will never come for him, but rather will flirt with his friends, seduce those he loves until they leave him to pick up their shadows, it hits him. to love someone is to remember.
so he begins telling stories. he’s not good with words, at first. doesn’t know how to tell anyone about arthur in a way that makes what he was make sense. he was more than my king. he was insufferable. he was half of me. he was arrogant and foolhardy and stupid. he was my destiny.
how do you say that? how do you find the words for that? how do you describe gwen– beautiful, kind gwen, who deserved the world over? how do you describe gaius– wise, complicated gaius, who harboured him when no one else would? how do you describe gwaine, and lancelot, and leon, and percival, and elyan, and morgana, and mordred, and–
how do you make your love into a legend?
merlin tells stories until his throat goes raw. he spends centuries spinning tales. there once, he tells countless, wide-eyed children, was a great king named arthur. and one day, he will come back.
to love someone is to remember. and merlin commissions paintings, reads poetry, watches plays where the actors try to mimic his friends.
all those centuries later, his heart still stops at a flash of golden hair.
in those first years, merlin had wondered if arthur knew how loved he was, how much merlin loved him. so merlin crafts him a world that knows his name, so that when he comes back, there will be no question.
arthur comes back to him in winter. there isn’t snow on the ground, but his skin is chilled from lake water, and merlin does everything he can to keep the fire going.
as he’s warming up his king, combing his hair, drying his hands, he dares to ask.
“do you remember me?”
it’s a question larger than the words that contain it. but arthur turns to him, and honest to god rolls his eyes, and speaks, for the first time in several lifetimes.
After the Black family portrait and the three Black sisters, I realized I only missed to draw the Black brothers, so here we go! Regulus and Sirius in a private moment of peace at Hogwarts, being their usual selves: one all smug and bold, the other full of anxiety and insomnia, probably (that’s how I see them at least).
I felt inspired by this concept and wrote a microfic about it! Let me know what do you think about it ♥♥♥
Under the cut for the microfic!
Sirius drew a breath from his cigarette and looked right in front of him. The low rustle of the leaves filled the air, giving the impression all was calm and serene. But he knew it was not. << We shouldn’t be here, Sirius >> said the young boy biting his lower lips, already scattered with small cuts, making obvious this was a habit of his. << Why not? >> he chuckled in response, << It’s such a lovely day, Reg, take a sit, relax! >> Regulus shuffled on his spot for bit, visibly uneasy, his arms crossed so tight as if that was the only thing keeping him together. << It’s the middle of the day! We have classes right now! >> << That’s exactly why it’s all so calm and nice! There’s no one around! >> Sirius open his arms to show the empty hallways behind the arch of the courtyard. << No one in sight >> repeated again, going back to his position, sitting on the edge of the arched window, his back against the wall. Regulus sighed deeply, knowing too well his brother to protest any further, but wondering to himself ‘why on earth does he had to drag me along?!’. << We should leave >> Sirius said all of the sudden, bringing Regulus back to reality. << Yes, we should >> he agreed with a sense of relief in his chest, taking a couple of steps toward the hallway. << No >> Sirius stopped him without looking at him. << We should leave that house, Regulus. >> It took a few moments for Regulus to register what his brother was actually saying, what he really meant. When he did, he simply shifted in places once again, his head suddenly feeling too heavy to lift, and murmured: << We can’t. >> << Yes. Yes, we can. We must >> Sirius looked at him with steel eyes, his featured now hardened by his determination. << We will die if we don’t, Reg. You know it. >> Regulus indeed knew. He knew what they had to call ‘family’ wasn’t in fact a loving safe haven to return to, and he dreaded and feared the moment they’d had to go back to them again. But he also knew they didn’t really have a choice. They never did in the first place. They belong to the most ancient and noble house of Black, and nothing would have change that, no matter how hard they’d wanted it to. << No >> he simply whispered again, his eyes now distant, << We can’t. >>
A microfic —ish, anyway— for @drarrymicrofic. The prompt was that Billie Eilish song and I chose the “tore my shirt to stop you bleeding” bit, in an interpretation that manages to be both literal and loose. CW for blood and injuries obtained in the course of reckless Auroring endeavours, he’s fine though and later they go back to Draco’s and take it from there.
“Not like this,” Draco said, shaking his head at Harry. His hands were shaking too; Harry could feel it where Draco was pressing down on his stomach, see it in the shiver of muscle up Draco’s bare forearms, hear it in his voice.
“I know I’m not going to die,” Harry answered, his voice coarse with blood, exhausted. “I know you’ve got this. But I wanted to say it anyway.”
“After St Mungo’s,” Draco said, a little helplessly, “you’re coming home with me.”
He leaned heavily on one hand, and Harry hissed at the fresh seep of blood. Draco cast again, wand slippy—another Stasis, then his Patronus, a frantic, fluttering thing.
“When all my blood is back on the inside, will you kiss me?”
“When all your blood’s back on the inside, I’m having a stiff drink,” Draco answered, but at least he had stopped trembling, and he bent his head to Harry’s body in invocation, kissed the crest of each knuckle on Harry’s cold hands, laid his head over Harry’s fast-beating heart, where nothing hurt.
“Maybe you’ll say it back,” Harry suggested carefully. “When all my blood’s back on the inside, I mean.”
The sun’s warmth as their only clothes, they lay, skin on bare skin, tangled in the tall grasses. “I never thought I could earn this,” Draco mumbled, quiet as the breeze’s breath, like he meant it only for the clover’s ears.
“This,” answered Harry, “is given freely and without cost.”
Harry, for the most part, had understood the world through the black and white of good and bad. There were bad people, who did bad things, and there were good people, who did good things. It was simple when he was younger. But, then, he grew older and hurt people, and desperately hoped it didn’t mean he was bad. He had thought awful, superficial things about others; their appearance, the way they talked, the way they walked. He began to wonder if that made him bad or flawed and whether or not it was truly a bad thing to be flawed; to be a product of his environment and then aim to overcome it.
Then, Malfoy came along with his gray eyes and his gray life. Malfoy who held his tongue nowadays, who was still angry some but willing to turn away and catch his breath and think before he spoke. Harry was fascinated, in part, because it gave him some semblance of hope.
Maybe they weren’t good people and maybe they weren’t bad. Maybe they were simply people, trying their best with what they had.
“He looked into the mirror and dragged his gaze upwards from his waistline above the sink. Sangwoo’s t-shirt hung loosely from his shoulders and the elastic collar swooped lowly into his sternum. It was just barely long enough to go past his hips and the hem brushed softly against his naked thighs…”
“The sun spilled in through the blinds and created long, skinny puddles of light on the floor below. It was early still and Sangwoo wasn’t awake yet. His chest rose and fell with each breath he took and Bum traced his collar bone with his slender middle finger, keeping his hand open and weightless; his wrist hovering carefully above his throat. The cool of the night was slowly conceding to the warmth of the morning sun, and between the chilly air and Bum’s delicate touch, goosebumps crept across Sangwoo’s skin, radiating from his chest as his heart pumped away deep below….”
