Most of this @badthingshappenbingo card inspires whumpy happenings, but this fic turned kinda shippy instead.
Content: Anxiety/facing fears, summer shenanigans when they’re all young and innocent, preslash Fremione
unbetaed and barely edited
read it on AO3
High Stakes and Higher Flying
“C'mon, Hermione, we need a sixth,” Ron pleaded. “Three on two isn't as fun.”
“Ron, no. You know I'd much rather watch,” Hermione insisted. She tried to step away, to sit down with her book and read, and keep her feet firmly on the ground.
“Please? you can play Keeper," he offered. “That way you won’t always be in the middle of the action.”
“I’d really rather not,” she insisted. Harry shifted his broom from one shoulder to the other, clearly impatient to be in the air, but also unwilling to leave her behind until everyone agreed that she was staying on the ground.
Ron was still on the ground, half mounted on his broom while holding a second out to her, but the other Weasleys had none of Harry’s hesitations. Ginny was far above everyone’s heads, testing how high she could climb around the edges of the clearing before Mrs. Weasley scolded her, and then diving, so steeply that just watching made Hermione's stomach clench, before climbing again, testing the limits. Although they were flying lower, Fred and George appeared to be trying to tackle each other off their brooms. Neither activity made joining in seem more appealing.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
George’s whoop of laughter interrupted their argument as he made a muddy crash landing. He popped up hardly a moment later, still laughing, before even his mother could worry about him being hurt. Meanwhile, Fred swooped down beside the cluster of almost-fourth-years, grinning triumphantly. “Ronnikins, I think it’s a lost cause,” he said, shaking his head with mock solemnity. “Hermione is scared of flying, but she’s not scared of crashing, she’s scared she won’t be the best.”
“That’s not true!” she protested, trying to quell the guilty flinch at his words. Yes, she was scared of flying and yes, she knew she wasn’t the best at it, but causation went the other way …right?
“Prove it,” Fred demanded, with a wicked glint in his eye.
“I…” Hermione hesitated. She wasn’t exactly one to back down from a challenge, but that mischievous expression made her certain that pranks would be involved, and she was barely willing to fly on a broom already.
“How about this.” Fred paused, and with a quick twist of his wrist, he was hovering ten feet higher, so Ron took the brunt of George’s revenge mud-attack.
Ron dropped both brooms in favor of tackling George back into the mud.
“I bet you,” Fred said from her other side, suddenly flipping over to hang upside down from his broom, holding on with only his knees, and easing his broom downward until his face was even with hers, “that I can ride my broom, upside down, like this, for longer than you can stay in the air riding normally.”
Well, if the prankster grin was going to interfere with Fred’s flying and not her own… “Fine,” she snapped. “What are the stakes?” There was no way he could keep his balance like that for more than a few minutes, especially if he started moving around. She could last on a broom for a few minutes.
Fred’s grin got even wider, though it was hard to tell exactly which grin that was – challenging? pleased? anticipatory? – with his face upside down and turning red. “When I win, you have to let me take you for a ride on my broom.”
“And when I win, everyone has to leave me alone to read when I want to, at least until we leave for the Quidditch World Cup,” she demanded, heart pounding already at the challenge and at the prospect of flying even as high as Fred was.
“Now come on, that’s not fair,” Fred chided. “You’re making a bet with me, you have to demand something from me, not from everyone else.”
Hermione scowled. “I want you…” what did she want? “When I win, you have to warn me before you cause any explosions, in your room or otherwise, for the rest of the summer.” The irregular, loud noises were at least as disruptive to her studying as her friends’ desires to hang out were, and the explosions didn’t have three years worth of fondness built up to encourage her to forgive them.
Fred didn’t even hesitate. “Done,” he agreed, offering his hand, and they managed an awkward handshake that would have worked much better had he been right side up. She was briefly concerned at how fast he agreed, despite how following through might force him to stop experimenting altogether, because she doubted the explosions were planned, but now they had shaken on it. It was too late to back down.
Harry helpfully picked up the broom that Ron had been trying to force into her arms. Hermione procrastinated by finding a safe, dry place to set her copy of The Magic of Theatre: What Muggles Don’t Know About the Bard, but all too quickly, she had no excuses. She accepted the broom from Harry, and swung a leg over it.
Harry mounted his own broom and kicked off confidently, as Hermione rose, wobbly, a foot and a half into the air. She didn’t have to look at her knuckles to know they were turning white, where she had the handle in a death grip, but also she was very deliberately not looking at her knuckles, since that would mean looking down past them at how far away the ground must be.
Harry stayed near her momentarily, but once she was high enough that couldn’t even imagine that she was close enough to the ground that she could stretch her toes and reach it, Harry pulled away and climbed rapidly, quickly getting drawn in to some sort of game of catch-the-apples with Ginny.
Fred, unfairly, kept pace with her, meaning his knees were a few feet above her head, and his face stayed level with hers.
Hermione kept an eye on the trees to judge her altitude, and she stopped rising when she was about even with the lowest apples on the biggest tree.
She came to an unsteady hover, and met Fred’s eyes with her best attempt at a challenging smirk, though it felt similarly unsteady.
Fred smirked right back, and leaned slightly, with the effect that he began circling her. He looked perfectly at ease despite how very red his face was from being upside down so long. Hermione tried to pivot, to continue looking at him, just in case he intended to prank her when her back was turned, but as she tried to turn, her broom jolted downward, sending her heart into her throat.
Ignoring how her hands were now noticeably trembling, and the whole broom with them, Hermione forced her broom back to its previous altitude. She tried to look over her shoulder at Fred, since turning wasn’t working, but that had the effect of her broom shooting upwards faster than she meant, not that she intended to move at all.
She managed to get her broom to stay level again, but she was starting to forget why she was in the air at all. Her vision narrowed in on her hands on her broom, and the ground much too far below. Even the trees around the edges of the clearing seemed to fade into the distance. She was up here to spite someone, but surely she didn’t need to be quite this high. She eased her broom into descending, a little faster than she meant, but feeling nearly in control, and crossed paths with Fred who was still upside down, and climbing at a much more controlled pace.
She couldn’t focus on the look on his face, though he quickly reversed course to follow her down. Why was the ground still so far away?
Except, suddenly, it wasn’t.
She tried to pull her broom level, but she was a tad late, and her feet bounced jarringly off the ground as she leveled out.
But from there it was relatively easy to put her feet down deliberately, if a bit more firmly than necessary. She swung her leg off the broom and found, when she tried to step away, that her knees were shaking too badly to hold her. She collapsed in an undignified heap, but quickly rolled herself upright, scooting backwards out of the clearing to be less in the way. Her back ran into a tree, and she wrapped her arms around her knees. She found herself taking quick, panting breaths, trying to get enough oxygen.
Still, solid ground under her butt was as reassuring as it would have been under her feet, if not more so.
As the adrenaline rush faded, and her head cleared, though her heart was still pounding, she remembered exactly why she had been in the air, and groaned, as Fred came to a perfectly controlled hover in front of her, at a more-than-respectful distance as though she were going to lash out like Crookshanks did when he was cornered.
Fred flipped himself back upright onto his broom almost effortlessly, before landing gently, beaming. “I do believe this means I’ve won the bet,” he said, as though she hadn’t already figured that out. He approached her slowly, watching with just a hint of concern in his eyes as she used the tree to pull herself upright. She had to lean heavily upon it because her knees still wouldn’t quite support her. One of her ankles was sore from her rough landing, but it didn’t feel sprained at least.
“Fair is fair, Hermione,” he said gently, in an encouraging and respectful tone completely at odds with his usual irreverence. “Can I take you for a ride now?”
Hermione got the surprising impression that if she said no, Fred wouldn’t force the issue. But even If she didn’t expect that saying no now would invite more pranks later, she was a Gryffindor, and they had made a bet. On her honor, she would follow through.
She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but she looked determinedly at his freckled nose as she forced herself to nod.
Fred kept one hand on his broom, shuffling backwards and gesturing grandly with his other hand, clearly inviting her to mount in front of him. She left her own borrowed broom on the ground, next to the tree and stepped forward. As soon as her hand was no longer on the tree she was using for support, her knees were shaking badly again, but she could at least walk the four steps to Fred and his broom, and she didn’t collapse again.
She reluctantly mounted his broom, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, to grip the handle in front of them both.
“Trust me, Hermione?” he murmured into her ear, and she nodded, not quite able to speak. She grabbed the handle in another white-knuckled grip, just below his hands, before he could remind her to hold on.
He kicked off, gently, and they rose more slowly than either of them had during their bet. Hermione found her eyes drifting closed, trying to avoid realizing how far off the ground she was, but that turned out to be a bad decision, and the potential for being terrifyingly high had her eyes snapping open again. They weren’t; they were still well below the plane of Harry and Ginny (and Ron and George now too) playing whatever improvised game that involved throwing apples at each other. Some of the apples were rotten and exploded like water balloons when someone tried to catch them, which was inevitably followed with shouts and good-natured complaining.
She smiled fondly up at her friends. When the broom didn’t feel like a wild animal trying to throw her off, Hermione realized she didn’t hate flying quite as much. She still didn’t love it, but the usual panic, the need to be back on solid ground, wasn’t materializing this time.
Hermione leaned back into Fred’s firm chest, and suddenly realized how intimate a position this was. He was wrapped solidly around her, a pleasant warmth at her back, and she felt her face heating too. She was abruptly glad that her dark skin wouldn’t reveal a blush very easily.
Fred gave her an odd, hug-like squeeze with his shoulder, without affecting his grip on the broom. He must have felt her losing tension, because his mouth was at her ear again, breath tickling as he asked, “are you okay if we try something a little more exciting?”
She hesitated, then leaned back so they were cheek to cheek and hopefully he would hear her answer. “A little,” she conceded.
She felt, more than saw, his grin, as he adjusted his grip to comply. Fortunately, “a little more exciting” turned out to be them doing slow laps around the clearing, still gaining altitude at a snail’s pace, rather than going straight up at a similar speed.
Hermione felt herself relaxing further at the proof that Fred was completely in control, and he wouldn’t let her fall.
When they got high enough to join the others, Ron’s face did something odd when he spotted them, and George immediately started flying towards them, wearing his own mischievous smirk, but whatever look was on Fred’s face must have warned them both off. Ron scowled and turned away, and George, without hesitation, reversed course and dove after Harry who was chasing a trio of apples that Ginny had lobbed the opposite direction from the group.
Fred warned her before every new maneuver (including “can we startle Harry by rushing through his blind spot? I promise we won’t be close enough to touch”) and by the time Hermione’s feet touched the ground again, so gently she almost didn’t notice the transition, she was startled to realize she had actually enjoyed herself, and although her hands were stiff from holding so tightly to the broom handle, her knees weren’t shaking at all. She felt a goofy, breathless smile on her face that wouldn’t go away.
Fred trailed after her, broom slung casually over his shoulder, as she collected the broom she had borrowed earlier, and then her book.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he prodded, though his proud grin made it clear he had spotted her own.
Hermione rolled possible answers around in her mind, before settling on, “I suppose, riding with you isn’t too bad.” Her cheeks were warm again, and she still couldn’t quench that smile, not even to express her discomfort at the prospect of flying in general.
Fred’s smile turned blinding. “Well, I guess I’ll have to take you flying again some time.”
He led her to the broom shed, to put her broom away. “Do I have to worry about you going flying with anyone else?” he asked, as she set her broom gently in the designated corner.
She turned around, and found herself practically in his arms. She took half a step to close the gap and wrapped her arms around him as she’d been wanting to do for most of the afternoon. He returned the hug, and pressed a tentative kiss to her forehead.
She squeezed him tighter, approvingly, since her own beaming smile was hidden in his chest. “No,” she promised. “Just with you.”
This vignette has actually been sitting around for ages, and I was trying to write more of a follow up showing the effects of sleep deprivation more than the insomnia itself, but with such a broad cast as the Weasley family, when I usually focus on 2-4 characters and not 7+, I’ve been stalled on finishing later scenes. And this stands alone pretty well, so I decided I’d post it now. If I ever finish the later scenes, I’ll add them to the version on AO3, but not to this post
content: Ginny Weasley, and the aftermath of her first year. Depiction of PTSD
My wife no longer has a tumblr, so I can’t tag her in thanks for beta reading
read it on AO3
To Flee From Morpheus
Ginny jolted from asleep to alert almost instantaneously. She scrambled upright, frantically trying to get her bearings. It was dark. Home. She was in bed at home. As her breathing settled and her heart slowed, she could hear Percy snoring through one wall, and the gentle creaking of the house. She’d only been asleep.
She muffled a groan — if Mum realized she was awake again, she would force Dreamless Sleep down her throat which would make everything so much worse; Ginny hadn't been able to explain that nightmares weren't the problem (she might even prefer them) — and glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was 4:03 in the morning. It had been almost three hours since her eyes had finally drifted shut staring at it. That might be a record for this summer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to sleep, necessarily. It was just, realizing that she wasn’t aware of what had happened, or what she’d been doing for the past few hours, was a horribly familiar sensation, and she couldn’t shake the instinct to check herself for blood.
She checked. She was clean. She was in soft, clean pajamas, soiled with nothing worse than the cold sweat she had woken in. She hadn’t been wandering about in her sleep, and all of her time was accounted for before bed. There was no hint of Tom.
Still, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again tonight.
Bad Things Happen Bingo Bleeding Through the Bandages
for @copperscales who very graciously said it didn’t matter if I picked to write for a fandom we didn’t share. Also they requested both Bleeding Through Bandages and Hiding an Injury, and while this fic covers both, I could only use it for one square.
@badthingshappenbingo thanks again for the card
Fandom: Magic Kaito
Content: minimally graphic depictions of blood, Kaito&Saguru friendship, allusions to gun violence
(title subject to change, un-betaed)
read it on AO3
In Light of Day
Kuroba was being quiet today, Saguru noted with a frown. He wasn’t taunting Nakamori or pulling his usual pranks. He almost looked to be in pain.
Not that Kuroba’s expression would look like pain to anyone else. He looked irritated or at worst sleep deprived, but Saguru could see where the makeup on one cheek was smudged off, displaying an unhealthy pallor underneath, and Kuroba was moving less fluidly than usual, almost tenderly.
Normally when Kuroba looked this ready to be out of class, he would cause some sort of chaos and then just disappear. It was worrying Saguru that he hadn’t done that yet.
Koizumi was also sending more frowns Kuroba’s way than usual, though the rest of their classmates seemed oblivious. Even Nakamori didn’t seem to notice Kuroba’s discomfort, as she was busy ranting about the stupid thief taking up all her father’s time.
His suspicion and concern grew all day, until, as lunch ended, he spotted a dark stain on the torso of Kuroba’s school uniform. It was hard to tell what color it was, against the already-dark fabric, but something about the pattern seemed unmistakable.
Saguru caught Kuroba’s wrist, pulling him aside as their other classmates filed down from the roof after lunch.
Kuroba shot him a wary look, tinged with a bit of panic.
“What do you want Hakuba?” he asked, but even that question was lacking its usual fire.
Kuroba followed his glance down to the dark spot on his uniform, and cursed under his breath. He pulled his shirt up to poke at bandages underneath, which were thick and lumpy (inexpertly applied) and had quite visibly been bled through.
There had been a heist last night, but Saguru didn’t remember a moment that Kid might have been injured, especially like that, just above the hip.
…Unless…
He had heard a car backfiring a couple of times as he left. It wasn’t a terribly uncommon sound in the city, but if that had instead been gunfire? Like an American movie?
Saguru would have to watch more closely for a third party with firearms at the next heist. (if the police had shot Kid, it would have been in the night’s report, and it wasn’t.)
He and Kuroba had settled into an unspoken almost-friendship along with their unspoken truce that involved Saguru not pestering him outside of heists, even though he was long-since certain that Kuroba was Kid. (Kuroba was a prankster, sure, but one didn’t just get into jewel thievery for no reason, and Saguru, somehow, trusted his judgment. It came with being friends, or something. In any case, Kid always returned the jewels he stole and Saguru found it very hard to resent the thief for leading them all on a merry chase, even, or perhaps especially, since he did so repeatedly.)
He didn’t like to see his friend injured, and, even if they weren’t the same, he didn’t like the idea of Kid having been injured by an unknown third party. (If they were the same, as he suspected, then this was doubly upsetting.)
Kuroba was looking at him with wide, wary eyes again, as though he suspected a trap.
Saguru just sighed. He’d earned that suspicion, with his behavior early in their acquaintanceship, especially since they never managed to talk about things (Kid) directly. “Go home, Kuroba-kun. Why are you even at school with an injury like that?”
He knew the answer of course, and he could read it in the mulish set of Kuroba’s jaw, even as it went unspoken. Kuroba would always be at school the day after a heist, no matter what condition he was in. It was, in some sense, his alibi. Plus, Saguru suspected, Kuroba used the opportunity to listen to Nakamori’s rants about her father spending all his time on the thief and none on her, to make sure the status quo was maintained or to get an early warning if not.
“I’m fine,” Kuroba said instead, though they both knew it was a lie. He pulled his shirt back down, and made a show of straightening it, though he frowned briefly at the bloodstain.
“Go home,” Saguru repeated. “I don’t care what happened; take care of yourself.”
Kuroba hemmed and hawed all the way back to their classroom, but just outside of it, he flashed Saguru a bright grin, and didn’t quite manage to disguise the motion of tossing down a smoke bomb. By the time the smoke cleared, Saguru could just spot Kuroba disappearing down the hall and around the corner because he was looking for him to leave. Everyone else in sight was staring at Saguru. He sighed and made his way into the classroom.
“Hakuba-kun. You know unnatural hair colors are forbidden in this school,” the teacher scolded tiredly, as though this didn’t happen to someone every week. (as though substitute teachers weren’t always trying to scold him for his natural hair color, considering he was half-English and didn’t have the same glossy black hair as most of his full-Japanese classmates)
“I’m sorry sensei – Kuroba did it,” Saguru apologized, holding back a grin. At least his friend was listening to advice and taking care of himself, even if he was using Saguru himself as the distraction to draw attention away from his getaway.
The teacher just shook her head and gestured for him to sit down. “If you can, wash it out before tomorrow,” she instructed, before jumping straight into her next lecture.
When Saguru got a chance, he slipped his phone into his open textbook and opened the camera app, in selfie mode. His hair was now a bright, almost fluorescent blue, (no wonder everyone was staring) so that could definitely be worse. When Kuroba was upset with someone, they tended to wind up with a hair color they hated. Besides being neon, and on his own head, Saguru wasn’t particularly opposed to the color blue.
Saguru spent the rest of the afternoon distracted, hoping Kuroba had someone at home to take care of him. He just had to keep reassuring himself that not having to put on a show of being “fine” would be easier on Kuroba even if he wasn’t being sensible and resting and taking care of that injury. (Saguru was realistic, it would take a lot to convince Kuroba to do “nothing” while recovering.)
Maybe when Kuroba trusted him more, Saguru would volunteer to help him just so he could make sure Kuroba was, in fact, taking care of himself. Even if that made him an accomplice.
