cruella de vil (holocron) wrote,
@ 2010-11-20 09:48:00

Entry tags:

hogwarts100, writing

hogwarts100; ficlets 2

restless
derek & edward
1973 spring

Derek Dobbs was in the library.

His Charms book was opened to the most current lesson's chapter, and there was a blank parchment with the day's date so freshly scrawled that the black ink still gleamed unrolled beside him.

He was horrified.

Looking back on it now, he supposed he should have seen it coming. There were only so many ways seeking Edward out as a refuge from his mad-cap dormitory could play out. But Derek rather fancied he'd be fishing the unfortunate fellow out of a rubbish bin or plucking him out of a suit of armor. However, when Edward had found Derek searching for him, he was delighted in that way he had, a bit like an abandoned puppy dog with the prospect of a new home, which Derek always found it impossible to say no to. The idea suddenly became a little more palatable when Edward seized him by the arm and towed him excitedly to the library, where he revealed the grand plan for the afternoon: studying for the O.W.L.s.

Which weren't until the following year.

It all comes, he thought glumly as he underlined the proper wrist positioning for a Summoning Charm, from being friends with Ravenclaws.

"Yeah," he said bravely, thinking if he verbalized it, it would surely become true, "this is loads better. I mean, Tilden would not shut up about soil consistency and bubotuber pods. You know, he—"

"Shh!"

Derek scowled in the direction of the shusher, and turned back to Edward, whose expression appeared vaguely pained. Giving his friend a curious glance, Derek soldiered on, "You know, he smells like compost. All the time. It's not sanitary, really." Derek shook his head in remembered disgust. They always pulled straws at the beginning of the year to see who had to bunk next to Tilden. Twice, now, it had been Derek, who was beginning to suspect his most excellent friend Galvin of cheating.

Speaking of—"And Vinny is really sweating hexes over this weekend's match. I told him not to, but he says Fawcett is riding him hard about it. Besides which, what do I have to worry about anyway, it's my third year on the team." Derek snorted, pawing at the hair that fell crazily in his eyes in an absently self-conscious gesture. "As if—"

"Shh!"

"Like we're supposed to believe you're really studying, Prewett!" Derek whispered back hotly, before continuing at a normal volume, "As if we don't all know Bones didn't just put me on the team because I'm bigger than everybody."

He might have been standing a comfortable half-foot taller than everyone, but it didn't mean he liked being singled out because of it. Or if it meant he had no real Quidditch prowess, he just had a usable body. But Jonathan Bones had told him he was good for the position, since he had a defensive personality, to which Derek had angrily retorted, "Oy, what does that mean!"

Point proven, he supposed.

"That's, erm, that's unfortunate," Edward replied nervously, his eyes darting around at the accusatory glares coming at his small table from all directions. This may, he thought, have been a mistake. His gaze slid back to Derek, who was oblivious to the stares, and probably would not have cared otherwise. Instead, Derek flipped the page and found the chapter summary, clearly containing all the vital information within the pages he might have otherwise had to slog through to find! He highlighted the boxes with large, various misshapen stars. Say, if this was what studying was like, he could get used to it! Surely he would get all Os next year. He hadn't even complained yet, really, and they'd been at it for a whole—ten minutes?

It couldn't be. He craned his head over to look at Edward's watch more closely, and ultimately ascertaining it was in proper working function after shaking it (and Edward's wrist) furiously, groaned.

"Shh!" A volley of responses fired back.

It was time to do some damage control, Edward thought hastily, turning to Derek and saying, "Perhaps we should—"

"Can we lock you in a broom closet and tell Filch the Slytherins did it again?"

Yes!, Edward almost said, grateful he didn't have to admonish his friend, before Derek's words sank in. "Derek!"

Derek's expression turned wheedling and he clasped his hands together on top of his book, almost upsetting the inkwell. "Please? It was so much fun last time!"

"Last—" Edward spluttered, "because they really did it, last time! No one knew I was in there, it was—six hours before anyone found me!"

"Yeah," Derek said, wistfully, "and they got such a roasting for it. We'll wait til Filch starts his north corridor rounds. It'll be a half an hour, tops!"

Nearly losing track of his indoor-voice, Edward frantically waved his hands at Derek in refusal to comply, "No—no!"

"Well, fine!" Derek retorted, before the bombardment of "Shh!" "Shut up, good Mer—" "Quiet!" descended upon them. Scowling darkly at the room, Derek slumped back in his chair with sulky, drawn brows and agitatedly threw his hands up in the air. "Everyone wants to ruin Derek's day today!"

Edward then thought it wisest not to mention the irate Madame Pince looming over his shoulder.

back

restrain
rachel & derek
1974 fall

Yes, Rachel mused as she narrowed her eyes at the table furtherest to hers. Her nails were just sharp enough to claw out someone's eyes, she was sure of it.

"So it's the timing of the wand motion too, not just the direction, so if I just—" But there was this incessant buzzing that kept interfering with her thoughts of gory revenge. "Rachel?" She did her best to ignore it, but it was difficult. "Rachel!" A hand shoved itself in front of her face, waving frantically.

Slapping it away, she whipped her head to the side and scowled at Derek Dobbs. "What? What must you go on about so incessantly?"

Looking just about ready to murder as well, he stabbed a finger viciously into their Charms text. "This, Rachel! I'm going on about this, the Charms work you promised to help me with so I can pass my test!" Turning the page with more violence than necessary, inadvertently creating a large tear halfway up the page and subsequently garnering looks of disgust from his tablemate and every Ravenclaw within hearing distance, he looked mutinously at the lines of text. "If you weren't going to be helpful, you might have let Giada do it instead. Like she offered."

"Please," Rachel scoffed, returning once more to staring down the two bodies at the opposite end of the library—it was a repulsive display, truly, watching Caradoc stroke Matilda's hand in such a way. Who did he think he was fooling? "So you two can gaze nauseatingly into one another's eyes for the entire hour? I'm certain that will help you achieve an 'Acceptable.'"

Slapping the book closed, he sneered, pointedly following her line of sight, "Oh? Hardly like you're doing with Dearborn, I suppose."

Rachel gaped at him, then kicked Derek hard in the shin as she tossed her head so her nose was far up in the air. "I am not gazing nauseatingly into his eyes, don't insult me."

The bruise that was sure to be forming on his leg despite his rubbing at it wisely dissuaded him from commenting on how easy it was to do so. Instead, he clasped his hands together, and though it went against his nature, the core of his very soul, closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and began, "Rachel," sounding not a little desperate, "can you please, please focus?"

Derek tried to tell himself that when he made the passing grades to advance to N.E.W.T. level classes for Auror training, all this debasing himself and grovelling would be worth it.

But it was really, really hard.

Looking more disdainful, if such a thing were possible, Rachel flicked her hair effortlessly over one shoulder, took one look at his notes, and rolled her eyes. "It's a forty-five degree angle, not a ninety one. And you flick to your left, not your right."

She slumped back in a lady-like manner and continued to plot the unfortunate blinding of Caradoc Dearborn, perhaps with Matilda Rowle thrown in for a bit of sport as her very horse-like titter carried across the library, while Derek's eyes bored holes in the copious amount of notes he'd just taken in the last ten minutes, basing them on Rachel's murmured assurances to his harried questions.

On reflection, they had sounded eerily similar to when she had a particularly nasty victory during chess matches. He'd just thought learning gave her a savage sort of pleasure.

Upon noticing she was still looking at them, he finally said, "He's an idiot," thinking she needed to rant and rave slightly before being able to concentrate.

"Did I ask for your opinion?" she demanded icily, her hands making fists on the table top.

As he was fairly certain his eye was twitching, Derek gritted his teeth and muttered, "I'm on your side! I just defended you."

Folding her arms and fixing him with a deadly look, possibly designed to shrivel certain unique attributes of the male body, she drawled, "Wonderful. If I need my virtue saved, I know just which knight in shining armour to bestow my favours upon."

He scratched a thick line in his notes as he fought the urge to growl. "Look, all I'm trying to say is I'm sorry he broke up wi—"

A muted shriek interrupted his well-wishing. "He most certainly did not! It was mutual."

Derek stared at her for a moment, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to find the proper words. "Christ," he finally settled on, "you Pure-bloods are nutters."

"Resume your studying, Muggle-born," she said coldly. Rachel glanced back at the table across the room, more out of reflex than a pressing need to judge, just in time to see Caradoc wink at her. Wink at her. "I am going to END him!" she hissed, standing up so fast her chair fell backwards.

"Whoa!" Derek smothered an oath and threw down his quill while grabbed her around the middle as she started to stalk off in that direction, bodily hauling her back against him.

"Unhand me at once, you—CRETIN!" she spat, fighting like a wildcat to get out of his vice-like grasp.

"As much as it would please me to help get you expelled," he whispered hotly in her ear as he began to carry her away from the table, towards the doors, "I'm not about to find out what you'll do to me afterwards!"

As she continued to hurl abuses at him, his parentage, and his countries of origin, he beamed at the librarian. "Just opened a misplaced book from the Restricted Section!" he called cheerfully to the quietly sputtering Madam Pince, while practically dragging along a hissing, spitting Rachel on her heels. "Not quite herself! I'll fix this in a quick second." Actually, this was probably the most concentrated form of Rachel Englewood one could ever behold, but life expectancy of the spectator decreased by a year for every second it continued.

When they had successfully exited to the corridor, he let her go, ducked a slap, and then caught her by the shoulders, giving her a good shake. "Listen!" he said, stooping to look her better in the wild eyes, which were… watering? "Don't cry!" he said immediately, feeling an enslaught of panic.

Sniffing loudly, half out of derision, half out of necessity, she hissed, "I'm not!"

Because she claimed not to be, and he knew she'd rather cut out her own tongue than spill public tears, his jaw hardened and he gave her another shake for good measure. "The Rachel I know doesn't get mad, she gets even."

Though it was a bit watery and hesitant, Rachel still managed to lift her brow and stare at him witheringly.

"All right," admitted Derek, who realised the inaccuracy of the statement almost before it came out of his mouth, "you get furious, but you also channel all that fury into that devious little French brain of—"

"I'm also Scottish!" she interjected offendedly.

"—of yours, and you make them pay."

Mulling over his words, she tilted her head consideringly. "That is something I do, isn't it?" she asked, though it was more of a laudatory statement.

"You do. And if it is not overstepping my boundaries," he held his hands up in pre-emptive defence, "I have an idea of where to begin."

Narrowing her rapidly drying eyes at him suspiciously, she asked, "Have you? You mean to say after everything you just shouted at me in there, you would help me with this? Why?"

"Only," He held up his hand to caution her, "on the condition that, after you make them cry like small girls, you please for the love of all that is holy, help me pass this damn Charms exam."

It took her only a moment to decide. "Yes," she said, nodding definitively. "I accept."

"Good." He leaned forward and gestured for her to do the same with his finger. "Now, when we walk back inside, turn to your right…"

back

try
nona & nora
1975 winter

Nora was hurrying back to the castle from Professor Kettleburn's cottage before the weak sunlight faded completely. Not that one could feel it, however; with her muffler snug around her neck and her hands in her gloves in her pockets, she still fancied her cheeks would be quite red when she made it back to the common room.

"BLAST!" she heard, just up the path. "Why are you so useless!"

When the shrieker came into view, Nora was surprised to see it was one of the younger years kneeling on the ground, the sleeves of her robe pushed up to her elbows despite the frosty bite in the air, a discarded muffler flung carelessly some feet away, the wool quickly soaking in the moisture from the fast-dissipating snow.

If that were not a strange enough sight, she had strewn around her a pile of roses in varying stages of sadness, a smaller pile of twisted, blackened-looking wire, a heap of turned soil, a few bottles with a jewel-coloured liquid inside, and something that looked like an enormous fish bowl. The girl was currently studying a piece of parchment so intensely that her eyes were naught but the narrowest slits.

Rather intrigued, and feeling kind enough to expend her time and limited body warmth on an obviously struggling younger student, Nora stopped a short distance away and called, "Do you need some help?"

The girl, whom Nora guessed to be a second year, as she didn't have the perpetually hunted look of a first year, or the smug satisfaction of a third year being let in on all the good secrets, eyed her in a clinical manner and said, with no particular emotion save the smallest bit of judgement, "You're not a Ravenclaw."

Nora blinked. "We-ell, no," she admitted, slightly taken aback. "But I have two good hands and a rather useful brain—"

"That remains to be seen," the girl said, tilting her head and studying the hands Nora had withdrawn from her pocket to demonstrate with, "but those will do for now."

Nora had opened her mouth to recant her offer, but the attitudinal girl was already tugging off Nora's gloves and directed her quite succinctly to a sitting position, shell-shocking Nora enough to comply. Then, trying to make the best out of a flabbergasting situation, she turned on a sunny smile and said, "Yes! Well, hello, I'm No—"

"Can you pass me that vial?" the girl asked brusquely, not so much as glancing in Nora's direction, but giving her extended hand a slightly impatient wiggle.

Dropping one of the jewel-toned vials rather violently in the girl's outstretched palm, Nora said with a hefty dose of acid, "You're a bossy little thing, aren't you?"

The girl had been unstoppering the vial with her teeth, and looked up with the stopper in her mouth, blinking rather owlishly. "Yes," she spoke around the thing clamped between her lips, diverting her attention to the pile of snowy soil she sprinkled the drops around, "sorry. It's a personal shortcoming." Only then did she spit out the stopper and applied herself fully to the task of mixing the potion and the soil, narrowing her eyes in concentration. Nora waited for a further explanation, but was evidently not receiving one. She endeavoured to begin again.

"So, what exactly are we doing?"

Raising her eyebrows in derision, the girl seemed to rectify the use of the plural pronoun by somewhat incredulously asking, "We?"

Deciding she dealt with enough domineering people in her life on a daily basis that she did not need to be cowed by a second year, Nora dusted her hands off and began to rise from her knees. "You know, you were managing fine before I came along, so—"

"No!" the girl cried. "You can't go! I've messed up thrice already! I need the vivarium to be held at an angle while the ingredients are added two by two, and the point is to do it without a wand! I can't manage it myself, I only have two hands!"

She seemed so genuinely distraught about her lack of a third or even fourth hand that all Nora could do was stare. And since she was a thoroughly perverse person, sat back down feeling very slightly mollified. "Now, let's try this again. What are we doing?"

"If everything goes accordingly, magic." To the girl's credit, there was not even a suggestion of irony, jest, or condescension in her voice as she applied herself seriously to the task at hand, murmuring, "It combines the disciplines of Potions and Herbology, in a demonstration of the natural life cycle."

It was all a bit rubbish sounding to Nora, as she'd opted to drop Potions and Herbology after sitting the O.W.L.s. She reached out a hand to the gnarled black mass between them, and asked, "What are thes—"

"Don't touch!" the girl yelped, causing Nora to yank her hand away. "I've ordered them perfectly by size!"

Gaping at her just a little, Nora shut her mouth and raised one eyebrow very pointedly at her. "You really should work on that bossy thing, you know."

Rather than apologise again, the girl huffed out an annoyed breath, but did stop speaking. At least, until she muttered under breath, "It's what you have to be when you're the youngest of nine," sounding only marginally bitter.

Nora's eyes nearly bugged out of her head, because how many litters of nine-plus children were running around this school? She quickly assessed the specimen for appropriate age, features, and mannerisms (definitely a no on that last one), and thought she found some of the matching criteria. Narrowing her eyes in her scrutinisation, she asked, "Nine—are you Nona?"

That certainly got her attention. Maybe-Nona looked up and blinked again, eyebrows crinkling in suspicious confusion. "How do you know my name?"

Nearly all her irritation forgotten, she pointed excitedly at herself. "I'm Nora!" Ha, got it out! "I know your brother!"

Nona looked at her expectantly.

"Oh, I mean, I know Octavius!"

The corners of Nona's lips twitched, but she still said rather severely, "That's hardly something to recommend your person."

After thinking for a moment, she offered, "I know the twins, too."

Nona considered this. "Better," she had to agree. "Now if you will please concentrate," she said, sounding much less peevish than she might have, so Nora complied.

After quickly explaining the process (and having Nora repeat it back to her thrice), they began the rapid-fire succession of placing the soil, the wire (which turned out to be withered flowers), the rose, and a few stones into the vivarium and spinning it three times, creating a volley of sparks and whirls inside the glass. Both girls scrambled back when the interior clouded and started to quiver and whistle a bit menacingly, but when it cleared, there was the rose, upright in its small soil bed, fully in bloom. When it began to shrivel quite suddenly, Nora let out a sound of dismay, but then, as if it were breathing, it fluttered open again. It remained in that cycle of blooming and withering, over and over, beautiful and eerie in a very macabre sort of way. Nona still clapped her hands in delight.

"I have been waiting all winter to try that," she said wistfully, unable to take her eyes off the vivarium in her hands. "I got a T on my History of Magic essay because I was preparing for this instead, but I don't care."

Feeling a twinge of gratefulness that she was not a member of this house, Nora asked, with great interest, "What's it for?" as they made their way back to the castle.

"'For'?" Nona slowed and looked at her as though she spoke a foreign language that as beyond her considerable grasp. "Why should it be for anything?"

"Of course," said Nora faintly. "Why, indeed."

Definitely grateful she wasn't a Ravenclaw.

back

under
octavius & delilah
1974 winter

Every single student in the Gryffindor tower was ready to kill whoever had stuck the sprig of mistletoe over the portrait's entrance into the common room. No one dared cop to the deed, and it was spelled such that anyone who tried to take it down had their fingers terribly pricked, gloves or no. No one dared report it to Professor McGonagall, since it was, had to be, some sort of love spell, and those were expressly forbidden on castle grounds. But being that no one could also figure out the proper counter-spell, it had remained where it was for several weeks after Christmas Eve, when it had mysteriously appeared, had been ever since, making all their lives entirely miserable upon coming or leaving the common room in plural.

Octavius was walking in, having come from a meeting of the Muggle Film Preservation Society just as Delilah was leaping out, having remembered she was late for Duelling Club, which was really only an excuse to snog someone she probably shouldn't be. In the following spectacular collision, their heads thunked together with a sound that reverberated a hundred times over in quick succession within the confines of his head as his vision positively swam with stars before him.

"Good grief, Delly," he managed, clutching at his skull as he tried not to bob from side to side yet still remain upright.

"How hard is your head?" Delilah angrily returned, rubbing at what would later become a spectacular horn on her forehead.

Pressing both hands to the sides of his hard head in an effort to stop the jarring between his ears, he muttered, "I wasn't the one stampeding out of the common room."

"I am late," she enunciated slowly, leaning in very close to his face, "for a very important meeting."

Risking his hands away from his head long enough to sweep them into an exaggerated bow, he said, "Then don't let me keep you," and stepped aside.

Or tried to step aside. His foot would extend no more than a few inches away.

"Uh-oh," she said, as comprehension dawned and her eyes lit up with a glint Octavius did not think was unreasonable to call maniacal. "Uh-oh!"

It took him a moment to catch up, but his own eyes went round. "No, I—Deli—"

"EIGHT!" Delilah chirped, clasping her hands together. "EIGHT, YOU HAVE TO KISS ME!"

Octavius groaned. In all their trepidation about who they might accidentally be stuck locking lips with, he honestly hadn't anticipated being caught under here with Delilah. Charlie was going to kill him. "Delilah!"

"Did I hang that there?" She jabbed her finger up towards the innocuous looking spring. "No! I did not. This is just as much of an inconvenience for you as it is for me, so just—" Although she thought she would definitely enjoy it, because she and Nora had—

Nora! Delilah did some quick thinking and stuck her hands behind her back innocently. "You know, actually, Charlie might really kill you, and that would be unfortunate, so…" She brought one hand up to tap to her lips. "You have to kiss anyone I choose!"

His eyes widened again and blood might have drained from his face. "Delilah!" Octavius was personally going to find out who had instigated this miserable prank and choke them with their own mistletoe sprig. She was probably mad at him and Charlie still for not telling her they were sneaking down to the kitchens two nights ago. Who was she going to inflict upon him now as punishment?

The mistletoe, while stubborn and determined, was not very clever, so it was possible to, on occasion, trick it by ushering another body (or two, if it was feeling particularly sensitive that day) into the circle and kissing them instead. It was how Octavius had gotten himself out of a very potentially awkward situation with Rafe Kirke, and the precise reason why, though no one had been in the common room to witness it (and therefore save them), he and Frank Longbottom still could not look each other in the eye.

"NORA," Delilah shouted suddenly, turning. "NORA!"

Octavius slapped a hand to his face.

"NORA!" who had been sitting in a chair, minding her own business entirely with a book, looked up with an immediately wary expression. "NORA, COME HERE!"

Sighing, but knowing better than to fight it, Nora rose and laid her book on the table, walking over to the pair of them with an expectant expression.

"Nora!" Delilah beamed. "I need to you kiss Octavius!"

"What!" she shrieked, as Octavius clutched at his hair with both fists, so it stuck up in awkward tufts when he finally relinquished his hold and shook his head, saying, "There is no need to involve her in your twisted torture schemes."

"He can't stay there all night!" Delilah protested, ignoring Octavius entirely. Having slid quite smoothly out of the little bespelled circle, she pressed her hand to her chest. "And I can't do it!"

Nora looked at Delilah, then Octavius, then back again, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. "I—Delilah, I—can't either! I have—a boyfriend!"

By now the whole common room had become aware of the scene, thanks in no small part to Delilah's idea of an indoor-voice, and Octavius was acutely aware of all the eyes that were now on them. "So what!" a voice called from near the stairs, "Adrian got stuck with Comstock last week—looked like he enjoyed it to me!"

Nora dropped her hands on her hips and glared in the direction of the heckler before her attention snapped back to Delilah, who clapped her hands briskly. "Unimportant! Now you have to kiss!"

"Delilah—" Nora hissed, her voice ripe with meaning, "I think that we should—"

But her forthcoming directive was lost to the room as Delilah now bobbed about the common room a bit like a drunken pixie, sing-songing, "KISS! KISS! KISS!" Within moments she was conducting a chorus of the common room stragglers, causing Nora's cheeks to grow quite pink and Octavius's hair to now be standing almost entirely on end.

Sticking his tongue firmly in his cheek, though, Octavius couldn't quite stop the ridiculousness of the situation from getting to him. Biting back a smile, he thought it best to end the interminable embarrassment as quickly as possible so he could cheerfully strangle Delilah later with less witnesses around. "It won't be that bad," he promised, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I swear I'll make it as painless as possible."

"Oh," she said, "well, I—that's—" But he was moving closer, so she was moving closer, and the rousing chorus of their peanut gallery had stopped, or they just weren't paying attention to it, and—

—nearly had a heart attack when the portrait swung open again. Charlie Spinnet ambled in, whistling, before stopping short at the scene before him.

"What's everyone standing around for?" Charlie asked, blinking. He looked around, gave a shrug, and started to walk forward when he was tugged back by the mistletoe. His head jerked up at it in reflex, but he shrugged again, turning to look at the candidates trapped with him. While he gave Octavius a considering look, his eyebrows pulled together when he saw Nora. "Not happening," he said with a delicate shudder. "Sorry, mate." Charlie then called out, "Oy, Diserafino!" waggling his eyebrows in a leer at the perky blonde who bounded over.

Within moments, they were plastered against the wall beside the portrait entrance, thoughts of the mistletoe long forgotten. Octavius gave them a singular look of exasperation and mild disgust before facing forward again. He put his hand out tentatively, then proceeded to follow it with the rest of his body when no invisible strings stopped him.

Stepping fully out, he said, "Looks like we lucked out today," to Nora with a smile and a shrug.

"Mhmm," Nora replied with the corners of her lips turned up in what some might also have called a smile. Her eyes settled like knives on Delilah, who hovered behind one of the squashy sofas with a big, beseeching grin pasted on her face even as her gaze widened. "Looks like we did."

back

why
wendy & seth
1972 spring

"Someone might come in!"

"No one is coming in."

"Seth!"

"Wendy."

The sixth years were tangled up in each other in the Gryffindor locker room, tucked in a little alcove where extraneous bolsters and mats made a surprisingly comfortable (and with a little wandwork—sterile) make-shift bed. Practice had long since been over—in fact, they had left and later come back towards the tail-end of their Prefect rounds— allowing them to make very good use of the deserted locker room.

Too good of use, one might even say.

"We should really go back to patrolling," Wendy said breathlessly between kisses. It had been about a month and a half since they were patrolling together, and it was so difficult to have a private moment together! Although what they were doing was horribly inappropriate at the moment, given that they hadn't yet finished their patrolling, but it she had to admit that it was her fault. She rather initiated it by throwing herself at him literally once they'd rounded the Quidditch pitch. Some sense of propriety had guided them back to the locker room, but that was about where that ended.

"We will," Seth said, sounding remarkably soothing for the activity they were now engaged in. He moved his lips down her neck a little. "After."

"Mmm," she murmured agreeably. "After what?"

He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at her with a mischievous little quirk of his eyebrow. "You know. After."

Her brows creased as she cocked her head confusedly at him. "But you just said the same words."

Sometimes, Seth didn't know who the dumber one in this relationship was. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was certainly a frustrating thing at the moment.

"Wendy, you know…" He shifted back to kissing her fully, while letting his hand which had been gripping her waist slide down a little… a little more, down, then just to the left, and—

"OHYOUWANTTOHAVESEX!"

She bolted upright, almost simultaneously knocking Seth on the chin with her head and bucking him off her.

Rubbing his head where a bucket had fallen off the shelf and clocked him on the head as he'd jolted away, he squinted at her ruefully. "Well, I—yeah, don't you?"

Wendy, whose face was pink, rubbed her hands together quite agitatedly. "I don't—I mean, I can't—well, I'm not really—"

Running his hand through his hair once in an aggrieved fashion, Seth dared sliding a little bit closer, and spoke very slowly as if to a backwards child. "We said a few months ago… when it had been six months… we agreed to take things further?"

"I don't think I knew you meant sex," she whispered, panicked. But it wasn't as if she and Seth hadn't done… things. They had. Sort of. Mostly they snogged. But they did that a lot! Really, a lot! But now hearing it in such black and white terms, hearing "sex," made her cheeks turn a likely-unflattering shade of red and robbed her of coherent, unequivocating speech. Wendy didn't really think that was supposed to happen.

He rocked back and looked at her as if she had sprouted multiple heads. "What did you think I meant?"

"Erm," Confusion was rather evident across her face as she searched for the correct answer. "Snogging in… the forest?" That was about as far as they could go, wasn't it? And against the rules!

Seth choked back a groan rather unsuccessfully.

"We could try again!" she blurted out, wanting to appease her boyfriend and his heretofore unknown depths of patience. "I'm sure—that it will be—fine!" They both ignored her squeak on the last word.

He (cautiously) edged back towards her, hands extended with his palms out, as if quelling a wild animal. She obligingly leaned forward, scrunched her eyes closed, and puckered. With a little sigh of relief, Seth leaned in to kiss her again, sliding his hand into her hair, and—

"I CAN'T HAVE SEX WITH YOU!" she yelped, wrenching away, then slapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes went wide.

"I—but—why?" Seth demanded, looking flabbergasted.

"I don't know!" Her hands fluttered helplessly at her sides, and her tone was positively stricken. "It's just—I think—I think I'm saving myself."

"You think?" he asked incredulously. "How do you not know?"

"I just—I don't know! It never came up!"

Seth couldn't help but drop a disbelieving look at his trousers, because he was pretty sure it had, in fact, come up. Wendy's face turned pinker. The silence grew, as did the colour of her face until Seth would have been quite concerned, were he not otherwise preoccupied about the growing rate of something else.

"Well," he said finally. He got up off the floor and brushed himself off, although there was no real need to. He just needed something to do with his hands because this night was going terribly, Merlin's saggy left—

"I'm sorry!" Wendy whispered, although there was no real reason for that either. But she thought the quieter she spoke, the less embarrassing it might be, which was not proving to be a very solid theory at all so far.

"All right."

She stood on her tiptoes and craned her head as if she could hope to look over his shoulder. "Erm… is there… anything I can do?" she asked timidly.

"No."

"Really! I could—"

"No!" He took a deep breath, a calming breath, and paused. "Let's just—let's finish patrolling," Seth said heavily, not being quite able to believe what was coming out of his mouth. No sex and he was being a responsible leader? He deserved a bloody medal, that's what—

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