WHO: Charlie Spinnet + Penelope Fawcett
WHAT: Seriously?
WHERE: His place
WHEN: Day or so after Kestrels vs. Tornados?

She calmed him. It was the one thing he could always vocalize when anyone asked him what it was about this mystery girl that kept him going back, kept him in line, and Charlie needed her expertise more than ever. His team was in the finals and all he could do or think about was missing the quaffle, letting the United score, allowing her brother to strike against him. It was overwhelming, and he need Penny and her soothing words more than ever to make sense of everything.

Except they weren’t doing much talking. He’d fallen back on his bed in misery and Penny had crawled onto the mattress beside him, half on top of him if he was honest. Charlie found it very hard to keep his hand from moving up and down her side, and he found it even harder to keep it from disappearing from under her shirt to touch her skin.

“How was work?” he whispered, trying to focus on her eyes even though her lips were a scarce few centimeters away. Charlie blinked, trying not to shift too much because that would bring them even closer than they were.

Penelope had been dragging. The realization that she was sitting for her N.E.W.T.s in less than five months had her slowly ratcheting up the amount of material she covered each study session, which grew longer and longer. The progression of the Quidditch play-offs had her thinking more and more about her brother, which, though less than before, was still no small amount of stress. And work, was, well--

"Good—busy," her lips lifted briefly in a little smile, thinking back to the mountain of a redheaded wizard she was apprenticing, "Mister Wright said I could learn to weld next week." Metal-charming was certainly fascinating--a much more intricate field than she'd ever really thought about, and she was surprised but glad to find it was something she enjoyed. Not that Penelope had ever seen herself doing it before, and couldn't say it was something she was going to stick with... but anything was good for now, better it be something she enjoyed, wasn't it?

Except seeing Charles, being near him, even resting her head on his shoulder, seemed to wipe away the tired glazing over her eyes. She felt sort of... vital. It was strange the way that just by virtue of being Charles, he stirred something in her. Penelope could not say she'd ever quite met someone like him before. She trailed a finger idly down his jawline as she said, "And yours? Or dare I ask?"

“I keep telling myself ‘one more week’,” Charlie said with a soft laugh, “one more week and then my joints won’t have to be on fire and I’m allowed to complain about it.”

Though he imagined Axe having some sort of spying spell on his flat, and that whenever he began to moan about his aches and pains his captain would burst through the floo and start screaming about how ungrateful Charlie was. Talking about quidditch, even thinking about quidditch was just going to make his nerves begin to shake once again so keeping talk of it short might be a good idea. His hand planted on her side, his thoughts going back to her comments about. Charlie couldn’t wrap his mind around metal-charming, having gotten just enough O.W.L.s not to be kicked out of school, but it seemed intricate and very delicate, which seemed perfect for Penelope.

“One more week and I can help you study more,” he said with a smile. He could at least tell her if her answers matched the study guides, or hold up flash cards. Maybe he could even find some books---Joey had only left Hogwarts a few years ago, he probably still had some of his N.E.W.T. level exams she could borrow. Though he had no idea how well Joey had actually done on the exams...but it couldn’t hurt. Charlie scrunched his nose, knowing that studying would be quite boring but willing to do it to help Penny. Maybe he could make it more interesting, though. “We can make a game out of it.”

"You'll miss it," she tried to hide the smile in her voice as she walked two fingers down the length of his upper chest. Penelope didn't know how he couldn't. If she was ever that talented at something, nothing could tear her away. She was too afraid to get on a broom, much less play. "Especially after you've corrected me on the leader of the Goblin uprisings in the 1600s for the twentieth time." When she heard someone make mention of her impending exam, she always expected the dreaded curl of shame to again settle low in her stomach. But much to her surprise, it never came. Admittedly, there were few people to bring up the subject, as Penelope's social circle currently did not extend very much beyond her roommate, Charles, and a handful of patrons met while frequenting Fortescue's—a far cry from her school days. Being given an unexpected second chance must put things in much-needed perspective, along with being too bloody grateful to really care.

Craning her head up, Penelope kissed his cheek. "You're sweet," she said, "but it will be very boring." Another thing that was different. She was boring. Before, she vaguely thought she must not have been, but the only things that kept her from being dry toast these days seemed to be the things she needed to hide from everyone. How did someone like her hold the interest of the Keeper for a Quidditch team that might very well take the cup this year? It was not a novel idea; she thought it before, when their relationship was of the tenuous, insubstantial kind, but the physical intimacy kept her shielded. If he didn't know her, he couldn't definitively judge her. But now, without that shield, Penelope didn't know how to hide herself. She didn't know how to make herself worldlier. She wondered, sometimes, how long it would take him to notice she wasn't much of anything.

Until he said things like that. Making games out of things. She'd done it since she was small, with her father. Her siblings must have as well, but she continued long after childhood, her and her da. From eating vegetables to leaving for school, somehow it all became game. Happy things, too. But she'd stopped, after, because he wasn't there to share it with her. Though in the summer terror that followed, it made her feel safe again. Now she'd forgotten how to use them for anything but. Maybe Charles knew the way.

He would miss playing, he always ended up whining to go back to preseason at least a month before they actually had to show up. Charlie had only been good at one thing in his life and that was quidditch, and even then it had taken him a long time to prove worthy of being a professional. It was why he drove himself so mad when it came to high intensity games like these; what if they finally saw that he wasn’t a natural like Zoey or Axe? That he had to actually force himself to perform at their skill level and if he faltered for just one day it would all come tumbling down? Even his sister was a natural dueler, Charlie had always been so jealous of how easily the sport came to her when he had to work so hard.

But again, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to throw up over it. He needed to focus on Penny to keep him from losing his mind tonight, when the game was a week away. Charlie grinned at her, twisting to hover over her.

“It would be a very fun game, I’d never get bored of it,” he said with a grin. “I’d ask you questions, and everyone you get right gets a prize.” A prize? Could he consider himself a prize? Looking down at Penelope however made him disregard any insecurities he might have and decided to play it cool to give in to some urges he’d been suppressing, Charlie leaned down and kissed her, fully and slowly forgetting that he was trying to explain something after a few long seconds. “Prizes like that.”

It gave her a feeling that went down, right to the very tips of her straining toes. Penelope's eyes fluttered open after he pulled away much, much too soon, and she couldn't say for certain, but the look on her face was probably dazed. Possibly slack-jawed, though she certainly hoped not, as that was more than a little unattractive.

It was just that he was so good at that.

"Oh," she said just the slightest bit unsteadily, thinking the premise behind this game was excellent in theory, but might potentially present a number of flaws in execution, as her brain seemed very likely to cease functioning after the first correct question. Had she been fretting over something, earlier? Had she really even been thinking earlier? "That is an incentive."

Those hands of hers that couldn't seem to be near Charles without touching him in some way or the other were itching to stroke down the rest of the body that hovered a breath above hers, but they were uncertain of his intent, so she contented herself with a light cupping of his face, her thumb just whispering along the corner of his bottom lip.

"And if I get the question wrong?"

It would take a much stronger man than Charlie to resist her lips and that touch. He stared dumbly down at Penny, the kiss rendering him speechless for the moment because in the two months they had gone back to seeing each other he had kept their physical relationship to a very bare minimum and that kiss was---reminding him of how they used to be. Charlie would never deny that their time together wasn’t enjoyable, wasn’t incredible, wasn’t amazing, but the sex had been a cover up for all her secrets, or for when he was growing too stressed or frustrated to talk anymore. A quick kiss led to a grope and a snog and then they were in a mindless haze and all was forgotten. He didn’t want to lose a second with Penny and he had tried so very hard to make sure that she knew he wanted more from her than that.

Metal-charming was something he hadn’t even heard of, but when Penny explained her internship Charlie had invested in a few basic guides so he could understand the terms. He asked about her family, and listened intently to whatever she might have to say, even if it wasn’t much at the moment. There were times when she slipped away for a moment that he would take a look around her room and he’d notice that purple was a color she seemed to like the most; the purple stone in the claddagh ring he’d given her (because she was very Irish) was because of the color and it was her birthstone (phew). Charlie was trying, and he could say that at two months into a real...courtship or whatever you wanted to call what they had, he was pretty well versed in the woman lying below him.

So he deserved a bit more than a kiss, right?

“You won’t,” he muttered, letting his hormones take over; any other logic had just been used to convince himself that dropping down onto Penelope was validated in every sense of the word. Charlie kissed her again, his arm snaking around her back to hold her tightly to him, nearly groaning into her mouth because of how good she felt underneath him.

She melted into him. No other words described the slackening of her body. Feeling like she was shooting sparks, her hand started to wedge between them, to streak down to his waistband, when she stopped herself. Charles's rationale for keeping his distance physically was understandable, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do. Even if it drove her slightly crazy, including her rash insecurity over the pseudo-rejection. But having just admitted to herself that she had used physical intimacy to keep him at bay, was she really going to fault his reasoning?

Instead, her hands slowly slid up around his shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer as she took his mouth restlessly, hungrily. Touch was what she craved. For as long as Penelope could remember, she had been a tactile creature, the need only intensifying over time. Wasn't she always finding some excuse to touch him, lay against him? The feeling of being connected to someone else grounded her. The feeling of being held made her feel safe. Charles made her feel these things, and more that she didn't understand. How could she not touch him and feel possessed by some kind of need?

She had used him to chase demons away. If she didn't understand that before, she did now. Charles made her feel things she had forgotten were possible to feel. Being with him pushed away the nothingness. Being with him had been about taking, using, and though the dissolution of their relationship saddened her, it was not something she could bring herself to regret.

In a very real way, it was her first time with him. The first time she wouldn't try to inflame, to push, to cajole him into taking it to a faster, harder, coarser level. The first time she would let the slow burn of emotion and feeling wash over her without fighting it. The first time she would let him take her wherever he wanted to go. The feeling was not without fear. Her heart was beating so wildly and erratically in her chest, it was a wonder she did not blackout. Need for action warred with cautious passivity, creating hesitancy in her movements. Stirring beneath him, she mewled when his weight settled just so between her legs, her hands fisting in the material at his shoulders. Tonight, they were together again, and trying to make a fresh start. Tonight, she felt like she was capable of giving, because he deserved it.