Michael wiped the blood from his sword in one motion, the sleeve of his-once white t-shirt now stained the bluish green of monster intestine. He hoped it wouldn’t hold the smell, too. Not ten minutes dead, and the body was already starting to stink. With dismay Michael realised they’d have to make camp elsewhere for the night, or otherwise find a way to move this crumpled manticore. One option was infinitely easier than the other.
He tilted his head. From this angle, it could almost be considered a piece of art – if such things could be ascribed to a monster hunter and his latest kill. If he squinted, Michael could still see pieces of its latest meal, scattered somewhere between the opened spleen and crushed spinal cord. He picked at a spare piece of manticore inside with the tip of his sword and realised, with a start, standing over the fresh kill, that he felt neither joy nor relief. He felt nothing.
McGonagall said this would happen. He could picture her now: weathered face marred deep with scars and old age, but voice strong and precise as ever. Lips thinned to a fine line. She lifts her sword – goblin’s gold with a ruby hilt, but never named. Minerva had no use for such frivolous things – and buries it deep in the target with a force unexpected for a woman her stature. She turns to him, expression neutral.
It doesn’t matter when – your second or fifth or hundredth kill. But one day, you will kill a beast and feel nothing. Not as your blade cuts their heart, nor as they crumple at your feet. That is the greatest gift our gods can offer: release.
It didn’t feel like a gift. Michael kicked a pebble in the corpse’s direction. It really was starting to stink up a storm, and, eyes watering, he turned away. He could remember what gifts were supposed to be, faintly, if he tried hard enough. But it was like picturing a past life; hazy around the edges. half convinced he’d dreamt it up in a fever.
His mother hands him a box, square and too-heavy for his child hands. She sets it on the table, lifts him into her lap, and he’s no soon seated as he’s grabbing at the wrapping paper – red and blue and glittering under the kitchen lights. He needs help with the packaging underneath. His father fetches a pair of scissors and cuts the tape for him. Something blooms in his chest, then, as his mother lifts the lid. Michael is sure he’s never felt anything like this, and likely won’t again. It’s too sharp for joy, too soft for bliss. Can happiness become something tangible?
Michael didn’t realise he was crying until the tears fell wet against his cheek. He wiped them away with haste, and thanked gods he didn’t believe in for solitude in the clearing. The memory faded before he could see the gift take shape – another reason, he supposed, the recollection must have just been fabrication. He stole another glance back at the body behind him. McGonagall was wrong. Whatever this apathy, this profound numbness was it was by no means a blessing. People like him weren’t afforded that.
Before Michael took too much time to wallow, the ferns behind him rustled with new weight. He spun on his heel, instincts and years of training kicking in with ease. Michael lifted his weapon, shoulders braced and breathing quickened. He was expecting a monster, likely the mate of the now-dead chimera, but instead was met with a familiar shock of dark hair, and below it blue eyes. In a blink every muscle in his body relaxed. The sword at his side almost clatters to the ground.
“Jesus, do that again and you’ll lose your bloody head one of these days.” Michael met Seamus with an indignant expression, sword half-raised but shoulders drooping. Slowly, warmth began to spread from his fingers. Emotion unfurled itself back out of his heart. At first the only thing he could feel was relief, then guilt. They weren’t supposed to feel this way. Michael wasn’t supposed to hold his breath every time Seamus went into the woods searching for monsters, and let it go every time he came back. There were rules, and the way they looked at each other in the clearing broke every one of them.
“Haven’t lost it yet, have I?” Seamus’ tone was too light for Michael’s comfort, but he supposed one of them had to be – and god knew Michael was doing enough brooding for the both of them lately.
He didn’t wait for Seamus to say more. He closed the distance between them in six strides and pressed his lips hard down on Seamus’, let the fear and rage and relief mingle between them until their swords clattered at their sides and Michael had Seamus’ face between his hands. When they came up for air, both boys were heaving.
“We’ll have to find somewhere else to make camp,” Michael gasped between breaths. Seamus only nodded, and stole a glance at the kill behind them. Another few breaths and they put more distance between them, although Michael longed to feel more of Seamus beneath his hands. He knew better. Time was not on their side. The manticore’s mate was likely still roaming, and once the sun began to set they were no better than dead.
They walked for what was likely another three miles, though with exhaustion settling in more with every step it quickly grew difficult to tell. They stopped only when Seamus, walking five paces ahead of him the whole way, could hear Michael’s stomach gurgle and groan for the fourth time. He’d argued, of course, that he could keep going, and they needed at least seven miles between them and the kill, if not seven more than what they’d already done. But Seamus put his hand on Michael’s chest, and everything in him grew quiet.
Their camp was meagre as always. They’d lost most of their food store a week ago at the hands of a particularly vengeful goblin and half their supplies to a flash flood. Tonight was the last they could stretch the rabbit Seamus caught and the produce Michael stole. But neither could say minded the quiet hot food and a crackling fire afforded them, or the way they nestled together under one blanket and folded up clothes for a pillow.
Today’s kill was different, though, even if Michael would never say it aloud. Seamus could still tell. He could always tell, no matter how many brick walls and lockboxes Michael built around himself. Seamus would peel them back, crack him open like one of his precious chestnuts and read with ease whatever Michael had been so determined in hiding.
He said nothing of the killing blow; the way his sword pierced manticore flesh with practiced ease; how he felt less than nothing as he took another life. A monstrous life, perhaps, but was a soul not still a soul? Michael was tight-lipped as always, and still, Seamus let him rest his head in his lap, ran his fingers through Michael’s curls until he was moments from sleep.
“Do you ever get tired of it? The running. The constant slaughter.” Michael’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, and nearly inaudible over the crackling fire. Seamus waited several beats before responding.
“All the time.”
Michael looked up at his partner – his best friend, his lover – and saw a moment hurtling towards them. The moment. The one he only let himself have in dreams; where he takes Seamus’ hands in his own, asks him to keep running, but this time away from the monsters, not towards him. The moment where Seamus says yes, and the infinite moments spanning after, where they finally get to live for themselves, and no one else.
He didn’t take it. Instead Michael’s eyes slipped closed, and only opened again once the moment was out of his reach. He took Seamus’ hand, as steady and calloused as his own, and pressed his lips to the open palm, just for a second. He knew the moment was there there, should he wish to take it, but he also knew Seamus deserved far better than Michael could ever hope to offer him, and to say those words aloud would be something Michael could never take back.
He took a deep breath, instead, and sent a silent prayer once more to the gods he didn’t believe in. For a fleeting moment, he wished for release.
Something so small shouldn’t mean so much. It shouldn’t, but it does, and he can’t help but stare wordlessly as Seamus presses his lips to Michael’s open palm. Everything in him goes silent: the anger bubbling in chest, grief rolling in his stomach, even the thoughts that knot themselves so easily in his brain begin to untangle, and then simply fry apart altogether.
He is somehow together unmoored and entirely anchored to Seamus. The space where their skin meets is a lifeline; without it Michael is sure he’ll float away into oblivion, his only thought of this beautiful boy sitting in front of him, equal parts rage and blissful contentment. It’s Seamus who keeps Michael’s feet on the ground, pushes him forward one step and then another, gives him reason and rhythm and strength when his hand curls around his wand.
But moments like these are brief, and as quickly as it arrived Seamus’ lips pull away. The connection is broken and with it the quiet. Michael drops his hand and stifles a scoff. What next, bringing each other breakfast in bed and taking him home to meet the parents? Not likely.
Michael covers it with a cough and curls his hand into an almost fist. He can still feel the shape of Seamus’ mouth against it. The wave of noise looms over him, threatening to drag him under, and the only escape Michael knows is sitting right in front of him. He takes a fistful of Seamus’ shirt and pulls him close.
“Careful, someone might start to think we mean something to each other.”
011. pinkie promise
Michael rolls his eyes. “What are we, twelve?” He stares at Seamus’ outstretched hand with raised eyebrows, wondering vaguely how he keeps it so still when his own are on constant threat of shaking at his sides. His first that is that, surely, Seamus can’t be serious. His second is that it isn’t fair. That they shouldn’t have to be reduced to whispers in the dark, laughing when they want to cry, and pinky promises of all fucking things. But they are, and it isn’t, and Michael knows better than to simply wish for a better tomorrow.
His expression shifts, just a little. The self-righteous smirk falters and gives way to the rolling tide of uncertainty, a constant push and pull against his ribcage that leaves him unsure if he wants to scream or cry or both. Michael does neither. He simply stares at Seamus with a mixture of incredulity and doubt. Slowly, his eyes harden and his shoulders set and he takes a deep breath. It feels like finality, even if it’s just one more step forward. He knows the answer before he speaks it into existence.
Yes, always yes.
The distance between them closes easily; naturally; as if there never should have been any to start. Michael curves his finger around Seamus’, squeezing until their knuckles are nearly flush. He wants to close the space further, until it’s practically none, but knows Seamus won’t let him go without an answer. Slowly, his gaze grows hard and his shoulders square with Seamus’.
“Yeah -- yeah, okay. No doing anything stupid, or reckless, or anything likely to get me killed. Got it.” He takes a breath and a clasps his free hand over Seamus’ shoulder. “But this goes for you, too, got it?”
☁ TRUTH: Who here would you most like to make out with? or ⚡DARE: Perform your best rendition of Dancing Queen
His body goes angular at the question, the warmth from the alcohol no longer coloring his cheeks with rosy giddiness, but suddenly burning down his throat with every swallow. Of course it’s bloody Finnigan who asks such a humiliating question, though, he supposes, it’s just the name of the game. For a moment, Anthony’s thoughts warm to the idea of saying, “Michael.” He can picture the moment now, the curve of a smirk at his lips, not because it’s true – that would be the farthest thing from it, really – but because he’s too curious for his own good and wants to know just how far Seamus would go when caught between Michael and Michael’s best friend.
He decides against it, reasoning with himself that, as much as he’d like to know the answer, it’s just not worth the black eye or bruised lip. A separate corner of his mind, one lost to hiding and denial, argues that he only thought something so ludicrous to distract him from the real matter at hand: He doesn’t have an answer.
Anthony’s learned by now, from those halcyon days turned nightmare nights with Mandy, that love, infatuation, and all those supposedly wonderful feelings, only left you on the losing side in one way or another. Even with the free flow of alcohol, the giddy smiles, the silly games and playful questions, there was still a war looming overhead, and the meager amount of Firewhiskey he’d had wasn’t enough to get him to forget that. The rage and ache at the very thought wouldn’t allow it.
Instead, Anthony closes his eyes for a moment as he attempts to deduce the best candidate, clinging hard to his analytical penchant when the question deserves an answer rooted in something instinctual. Were rage and reading truly the only natural things left in him?
He resolves to say the name of the first person he sees when he opens his eyes again. “Ernie,” he finally replies, and swallows it down with a rather large gulp of Firewhiskey. Anthony can only hope that the boy won’t be upset at hearing his name hang off his lips, and that the amber liquid is enough to wash away the moment.
Send ☠ for our muses to do shots together / Send ☺ for my muse to do a body shot off yours.
Throwing back the full contents of her shot glass, Parvati looks over at Seamus, a giggle falling from her lips. He’s perhaps her favorite drinking partner and it’s fair to say it’s far from the first time they’ve done shots together.
“Merlin, Seamus I think I’ve already lost track of what number we’re on,” she manages out in between her fit of giggles as she looks around, “This is sooooo different than the muggle pubs.”
“Still not sure if it’s better or worse, but I’m not going to say no to the alcohol,” Seamus replies, as their glasses refill themselves, “regardless of the source.”
They should probably should keep their voices down, but as it appears, it’s safe to assume everyone around them is either too drunk or too distracted to take much notice of their allusions to their less-than-allowed late-night activities.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Parvati exclaims, clapping her hands together, as her eyes are drawn to the salt and limes sitting between them, “You know what we can do here?”
“What?” he asks with the quirk of his eyebrow as he follows her line of sight, before picking up on her suggestion, before barking out his own laugh, “Oh, you’re on, Patil.”
Grinning wickedly, she places some salt on the crook of his neck, as he grabs one of the limes to hold in his mouth. “Okay, here we go,” she chuckles, as she throws back the liquid, and moves over to lick the salt off his neck, eventually biting down on the lime he held in his mouth as her face contorted in response to the sourness of the lime.
Pulling back, laughter still falling from her lips, she looks at Seamus with a wicked grin, “Looks like it’s your turn now, buddy!”
probably a warm evening, sometime in the summer when the days stretch out even longer before the sun sinks below the horizon. surrounded by friends in a room filled with energy and music and laughter. most likely doing something stupid during the middle of it all, trying to get everyone’s attention. drinking more butterbeer or firewhiskey than planned, dissolving into tipsy laughs and jokes. ending the night with a feeling of warmth and love.
