Sam sat quietly in the backseat hungrily eating her Junior Burger. She wanted to cry so badly, but she wouldn't let Anita have the satisfaction. Her little click would just love to see you crack and start crying. She looked at Sandy in the passenger seat for just a second before looking away quickly. She remembered what happened just last year when Sandy lost a bet with Anita.

"No bitch! You said anything. You lost and that's all there is to it." Anita shouted at Sandy while standing in front of her open closet.

"But Anita..." Sandy had started to say with sweat starting to form all over her naked black skin and in her short blonde dyed hair.

"No! No! Don't even. I know your ass would have something equally demeaning in mind if I had lost. You wouldn't let me back out." Anita argued as she stepped out of the door revealing a hole had been cut in the closet door and motioned for Sandy to get inside the closet.

"Alright, but don't let the party get out of control." Sandy said as she slowly got inside the closet, turned around, and got on her knees where a little pillow was on the floor.

"Sure." Sandy said closing the door.

Sam had gone to that party. It was one of the biggest parties Anita had ever thrown, probably due to the fact that Sandy was in the makeshift glory hole taking hot dicks to the throat. Sandy was a very well known lesbian, until that point Sam didn't think that Sandy had ever sucked a dick before. Sam remembered the uncountable number of guys went into that room throughout the night and well into the morning. Sandy must have sucked 50 dicks that night, most of them multiple times. Anita had just invited a shitload of guys from the rave to come to our AirBnB.

'Fuck!' Sam thought as she crumpled up her burger wrapper. "Tits out the window bitch!" Sandy said suddenly staring Sam up and down. 'Has she been ogling me this whole time?' Sam thought and quickly turned towards her open window. Sam once again felt the window roll up under her tits, only this time it was only to hold her tits up and out the window. It was down low enough that Sam could stare out the window. Sam hadn't realized that they were stopped at a light or that there was a convertible full of five guys right next to them until that moment. Sam almost instinctively pulled away.

"Say hi bitch!" Anita said.

"Hi." Sam squeaked barely audible.

"They didn't hear you." Anita yelled.

"HI!!" Sam yelled.

"That's better slut!" Anita said just before the light changed and she drove away. Sam watched as they drove deeper into neighborhoods she didn't really know her way around. Finally, they arrived at a little park in the middle of a neighborhood. It was a small wooded area with a broken down playground. Gang signs painted on the small little bathroom with a men's room and a ladies' room.

They pulled up in the parking lot and parked just by the bathrooms. Sandy and Anita quickly got out with Anita going straight to the trunk. Sandy opened the back door and pulled Sam's naked ass out of the car.

"Walk bitch!" Sandy said shoving Sam forward.

Sam reluctantly walked noticing that she was being shoved towards the bathrooms. Sandy shoved Sam into the men's room with Anita quickly catching up to them.

"I had plenty of prep time whore, for your punishment." Anita said pushing Sam against the remains of the one bathroom stall in the room. The only thing left was the frame and the door, nothing covering the side at all.

"Anita.." Sam started saying nervously, tears in her eyes.

"It's far too late for that bitch! Thought it would be cute to try and fight back. You know I take what I want and you get what I let you have." Anita spat.

"Fuck you bitch! You started this shit...." Sam had started saying, acting like she was going to fight. Sandy grabbed her by the throat and slammed the back of Sam's head against the little bar on the stall.

"Please. Don't hurt me." Sam begged and Sandy eased her grip on her throat.

Sandy slowly lowered Sam to the floor, on her knees. Anita went behind the stall and Sam felt her applying cuffs to her wrist and then there was some rope that Anita roped over the top of the busted up bathroom stall it pulled Sam up to this awkward height where she was squatting not able to fully get on her knees. Then she felt cuffs go around her legs and Sandy let Sam go. Sam couldn't lower herself to her knees and couldn't fully stand. Her hands and knees were cuffed around the bar and the rope that linked them was strung over the bathroom stall keeping her in this awkward squatting position.

"Perfect!" Anita said, then she put something over Sam's head that hung down over her tits. It was a string that was through a crude cardboard sign. Sam looked down at the sign having trouble interpreting it upside down while Anita was planting a portable camera with a suction cup up in the corner. Anita was playing with her phone, lining up the camera's view to focus on Sam from just over Sam's shoulder.

"Oh Fuck!!" Sam said. She had finally deciphered the sign that said, "FREE BLOWJOBS!!"

"You're going to honor that until I come back. Cum on your face. Otherwise, I force you to swallow this and leave you to get raped over and over." Anita explained holding a handful of pills in her hand. Rohypnol.

"Fuck!" Sam said, tears streaming down her face. "Really Nita.."

"Yes! Fucking Really!! I'll be watching!!" Anita said pointing to the camera and dragging Sandy with her as she walked out.

Sam heard the car doors slam shut and the car pull away. It was only like 4 PM as best as Sam could tell.

'She's kidding. She'll be back in a minute...' Sam tried to rationalize with herself as she heard male voices talking outside.

'Who the fuck are you kidding Sam?! She left you to suck cock until she feels like letting you go. She could just leave you forever.' Sam thought to herself.

"You've got company whore. Act like you want it!" Sam heard Anita's voice through a speaker that must have been in the camera.

Just then, three big black guys came strolling into the bathroom with a smoking cigar in one of their hands.

"Yo! What the fuck?!" The first guy said. "Am I just fucking high?"

"No. I'm real." Sam heard herself saying, feeling like it was coming from someone else.

"For Real? That shit a valid offer!" One of the others said pointing to her sign.

"Absolutely." Sam again heard herself saying.

"Well fuck me guys, wait outside." The first guy said unzipping his pants.

Sam watched him pull his huge cock out of his pants while his friends stepped outside. Sam actually felt herself lick her lips as she smelled his cock now growing closer to her open mouth. Was she really going to do this?

'Better than the other option.' She told herself and opened wide.


Three years of life with Alexander, and Magnus could no longer tell what life without him looked like. Centuries of existence and a carefully cultivated lifestyle had been entirely dismantled and then promptly rearranged by his husband.

Anywhere he looked, there were signs of Alec’s influence, whether it was photographs lining the wall or the Alicante skyline outside their window, whether it was the wedding ring on his finger, or the fact that it was now routine for him to drop the glamour over his eyes once he was back home.

No one in Magnus’s life had taken the time or the consideration to carefully learn everything they could about him, no one had taken the effort to weave their life so intricately alongside his own the way Alec did. No one else knew him so entirely.

Because Alexander might not know which city Magnus spent the middle of the 19th century in, what properties he owned or when Magnus had first set foot in New York. He might not know the pages upon pages of history storied neatly into the journals Magnus still had stashed away in his estate across the sea. It was after all quite impossible to share centuries of life in less than a handful of years.

But Alec knew him, knew the drink he favoured when he was in the mood to dance and the scented oils he’d choose when he wanted to wash off a tiresome day. He knew to kiss Magnus goodnight and leave him be when he was particularly fascinated by a new translation he was working on, and to drag him forcefully to bed when exhaustion and magical depletion were chasing at his coattails after overworking himself. He knew when to wake him up with soft kisses and breakfast in bed and which Clave sanctioned dinners to sneak out of so they could ravish each other like horny teenagers.

Alec knew Magnus, wholly, intimately and in all the ways that it mattered, and he continued in his efforts to learn more each day.

His latest venture has been to learn Indonesian, something that had been kick started by Magnus himself after one particularly memorable night. In throes of passion, Magnus had accidentally reverted all the way back to the language of his mother and instead of being smug about managing that, Alexander had been curious.

He was already used to Magnus’s whispers of ‘sayang’ or ‘cintaku’ in his ears, he was familiar with pressing the words ‘aku cinta kamu’ in gentle kisses to Magnus’s lips, but apparently, it was Magnus being verbose in bed that had gotten to Alexander.

Of course the first time Alec had greeted Magnus with a stilted ‘Selamat datang di rumah cintaku’ , Magnus had been too endeared and though he’ll never admit it, a little choked up with emotion, at the best welcome home greeting he had ever received.

Since then, Alec had picked up a few more phrases and Magnus had been quizzed more than once on the meaning of words Alexander was trying to learn.

Magnus adored it of course, even in the initial days, when the words were slow and the pronunciation was butchered, Magnus had been too overwhelmed with fondness to do more than correct them with gentle kisses.

And now, a few months in, Magnus was starting to get used to peppered phrases of his native tongue in between conversations, and especially in between the sheets – which was why, it made no sense for him to freak out this way now.

The two of them were lounging in bed on a Sunday morning, Magnus resting on his side and  ardently pressing kisses up and down Alec’s captive hand while his shadowhunter tried to hold on to the last vestiges of sleep. His eyes were still closed though the smile stretching on his face was enough of an indication that he was indeed fully awake.

“Saatnya bangun Alexander” Magnus murmurs, urging Alec into waking up, there were better ways to spend a morning in bed than pretending to sleep after all.

Alec only hummed a little, his hands encircling Magnus and tugging him gently on top. Satisfied with getting his way, Magnus willingly leans down to press a proper kiss into Alec’s waiting mouth, reveling in the way they were both quick to lose themselves in it.

“Selamat Pagi Cahayaku” Alec says into his mouth, opening his eyes just in time to see Magnus turn ashen and pull away, the words still ringing in his ears.

He doesn’t remember moving away, if anything he feels stuck as the sands of time flood over him, but he must have, because Alec is sitting up in bed now, a careful hand extended towards him and a frown marring his face.

“Magnus?” Alec sounds concerned and Magnus absently wonders what expression his husband is seeing on his face, just how much shock is showing that makes Alexander looks at him with such worry.

“Magnus what’s wrong?” Alec presses, but still seems hesitant to approach any closer, and God how long had it been since Alexander had been this careful with him? It would cast him back to those days when Magnus had first dropped his glamour, that body switch with Valentine, the first days his magic had been gone, but Magnus was lost further back in his own past to make those connections.

“What  - what did you say?” He asks, voice tight and barely audible.

Alec looks bewildered and lost as he blinks at Magnus, rearranging himself to scoot minutely closer while still keeping his distance.

“Good morning?” he asks doubtfully, he’s said it hundreds of times in both languages after all.

But Magnus is shaking his head before the words are even out of Alexander’s mouth “No, what did you call me?”

It is the tremor in Magnus’s voice that finally has Alec reaching forward to properly touch him again, one hand cupping Magnus’s face gently, even as he thinks over his own sentence.

“Cahayaku?” He repeats slowly, his eyes going wide when he hears Magnus keen almost mournfully in response. Even if he said it wrong, it would hardly be the first time he mispronounced a word, nothing about it should affect Magnus so.

Alec rubs a soothing thumb over the apple of Magnus’s cheek, his voice gentling infinitely “What is it Magnus?”

His own name is jarring to Magnus now, his mind torn between today and centuries past. The image of Alexander cradling his face, is almost superimposed by his mother doing the same to a much smaller version of him, and it brings tears unbidden into his eyes.

“Please, please don’t cry” Alec begs, his other hand coming up to hold Magnus’s face, urgent in the need to wipe away the tears falling rapidly.

“Ibu saya –“ The words catch in his throat and he corrects himself “My mother – she used to – she called me –“

Alexander stills, the ‘oh’ of acknowledgement silent as it falls from his lips. He seems to understand the gravity of what he had just said and doesn’t seem to know what to say next. Magnus for his part is still reeling and also speechless.

“I’m sorry” Alec says after a few minutes of quiet “I won’t say it again”

And that breaks Magnus’s heart even further, the simple withdrawal more than anything jolting him back into action as he hurries to grip the hands holding his face.

“No – Alexander, you don’t understand” He says urgently, the words lapping over each other in his rush to somehow simplify the tumultuous ocean of feelings inside of him “She used to call me that because – it was my name. My birth name, it's Cahyo”

Alec’s eyes go wide, his mouth dropping open in stunned surprised, before suddenly a wide smile stretches across his face and he is beaming at Magnus.

“Cahyo” he says softly, surely, and it lands over Magnus’s heart like a solid punch “Of course, of course your name would mean light”

There’s an almost joyous bark of laughter from Alec and he leans forward to kiss Magnus on the forehead, the love shining impossibly bright in his eyes that Magnus feels like he is drowning in it.

Never in his life has he mentioned the name his mother gave him, not once has he spoken it in the centuries since. No one knows of it, not Ragnor, not Catarina, nobody alive except his father.  But here Alec was, having stumbled upon the very foundation of who Magnus was, with simple ease.

“It suits you” He promises, the reassurance accompanied by another kiss to his cheek. And when Magnus is still too speechless, Alec pulls him into his chest, arms wrapped securely around him and allowing Magnus to hide away from the world in the crook of his neck. The two of them sitting there in silence with Magnus replaying the last words Alec had said that morning.

“You are my light Magnus”


 Before

 Sitting at the Gryffindor table at the Welcome Feast, Harry has his whole life ahead of him.

 He’s only eleven, sure, and he might be too young for many things, but he catches sight of white-blonde hair and shining grey eyes and he knows.

 “Someday,” he says, to Ron. “He’s going to be my husband.”

 Ron looks over at the Slytherin table and wrinkles his nose.

 “Malfoy?” he asks. “Why?”

 They’ve been friends for all of six hours, so he doesn’t know that this is how most things happen in Harry’s life; he practically wills them into existence.

 “I don’t know,” Harry says, because he can’t quite tell yet; he doesn’t know, he can’t explain it, but he knows his father went through a similar experience. Before he and his mom died when Harry was seven, he’d heard the story often.

 “  I knew from the moment I saw her,”   James used to say to Harry every night, when Harry would ask for a bedtime story.  “Lily Evans was going to be my wife. Even if she didn’t know it herself.”

 His mother would roll her eyes, kiss Harry’s temple.

 “  Your father says he knew,”   she’d say. “But he couldn’t have. Those things don’t work like that.”

 Harry had never quite known what to believe; on the one hand, James would wink at him and tell him he’d know too, one day, but Lily would tell him that there was no problem if he didn’t.

 Harry hated the idea of not knowing immediately, of not having that kind of love, and it’s why he’d been so nervous about Hogwarts, no matter how Sirius or Remus tried to soothe him.

 Now, looking at the blond, he knows.

 “I’m going to marry him one day,” he repeats.

 Ron shakes his head disbelievingly.

*

After

When Headmistress McGonagall places the Sorting Hat on his head, Scorpius ignores the whispers; he’s been doing so all his life.

 Potter-Malfoy, huh?   The Hat’s voice seems to be only inside his head, and he tries not to jump in surprise; despite how much he’s been looking forward to this moment, how much he wants it, he doesn’t think he could ever quite be ready.   I remember your parents. Slytherin and Gryffindor, but where do   you   fit ?

Scorpius has been told he looks exactly like his dad; with the white-blonde hair and the fair skin, all he really has from his father is the green eyes, which everyone in the wizarding world recognizes as soon as they see him.

 I want to be like my parents , he thinks, and the hat laughs quietly.

 Doesn’t everyone ? It asks.

Scorpius swallows; their story is legendary, told to children before bed, talked about in the streets. The way they hated each other, the way they fell in love.

The way they died.

Scorpius doesn’t want to be like them because of that; he doesn’t care about the secrets, he doesn’t care about the power and the whirlwind of romance and greatness, he wants to be like them because they were honorable, because they were  good .

Because they protected him at all costs, with their lives, because they knew what they wanted, and Scorpius doesn’t have the smallest clue.

“SLYTHERIN!” The Hat calls out. The Slytherin table erupts in cheers, and, before McGonagall moves, it speaks to him again.  You’re going to get as far as you want to.

McGonagall whisks the hat off his head.

*

 Before

 “Oi, Malfoy.” Harry’s grinning, resting on his broom, mid-air, while the rest of the team practice; he’s Gryffindor’s youngest seeker in a century, and he’s already caught the Snitch, which means he’s enjoying his time watching the people in the stands. “What are you reading?”

 Malfoy looks up at him, unimpressed. “How to Get Unbearable Gryffindor Gits to Stop Talking to You.”

 Harry’s grin only widens. “How is it working for you?”

 “Not well,” Malfoy says drily. “I thought I’d have less interruptions here than in the library, but clearly, I was wrong.”

 “Right, less interruptions,” Harry says. “So it’s nothing to do with the view?”

 Malfoy snorts, picking up his things and shoving his bag onto his shoulder. “In your dreams, Potter.”

 “In my dreams   you’re   the view!” Harry calls after him.

 Malfoy throws a jinx over his shoulder, and Harry yelps as it hits him in the face.

 *

After

He writes home to Teddy, Sirius, and Remus; he knows Teddy wanted him to be sorted into Hufflepuff, and though Sirius and Remus pretend not to care, they wanted him to be in Gryffindor; after all, his father was, too.

“Quit moping.” Rose nudges him when she sees him in the hall; she’s a year older, and if Scorpius isn’t at home he can always be found at the Weasleys’, in Rose’s room, probably in some sort of contest of  who can name more Astrology book titles . “I thought this was what you wanted.”

“It was,” he says. It’s not that he  didn’t  want it, it’s just – at home, everyone is used to him; they know he’s a huge nerd, that he’s shy, that he needs glasses but forgets them more often than not, that he’s allergic to nuts and cacao and that he has dragon slippers that roar when he walks. Here, people either ignore him – which he’s fine with – or stare at him like he’s some all-powerful wizard because of what happened when he was a baby.

He doesn’t feel all-powerful.

“Then what’s the problem?” she asks, because she can always tell; they’ve been best friends for practically their entire lives, it’s insulting for him to think he can hide things from her.

“There’s no problem,” he lies. The problem is that he can’t stop thinking about his parents, about the fact that they were here, where he is, and if he concentrates he can almost imagine them next to him.

Rose smacks the back of his head. “Don’t get too lost in your own head.”

*

 Before

 “You can’t know you’re going to marry him,” Hermione says, in their second year when Harry explains it to her.

 “You can give it up,” Ron tells her. “I’ve been trying to tell him that for a   year  .”

 “I just know,” Harry says, ignoring Ron.

 “But you can’t   know  ,” Hermione insists.

 “You’re going to take that back when you’re invited to our wedding,” Harry tells her, and she rolls his eyes.

 “Okay,” she says. “  If   you and Malfoy get married, I'll take it back.”

 *

After

Scorpius sits in front of the mirror of Erised for what feels like an eternity or two. There are a lot of things he doesn’t remember about his parents; their voices, for one, or the way he’s been told his father used to sing when he cooked, but he’d know their faces with his eyes closed.

There are old home movies, soundless; his favorite one is the video of his first time in a ferry, in his dad’s arms while his father filmed. He's watched it enough times he could recreate it in his sleep, the way his dad grinned, the kiss his father pressed to his forehead before sitting next to him and waving at the camera, so he recognizes them in the mirror before he recognizes himself.

His dads, hand in hand, standing beside him like they were always meant to, standing next to each other like a choice they made, over and over, even if it got them killed. Scorpius wonders if they’d do it differently, if they could.

“I love you,” he says, a little uselessly, a little hopelessly. “And I wish you were here.”

His dad puts a hand on his shoulder, and Scorpius can almost swear they are.

*

 Before

 Remus starts teaching at Hogwarts during Harry’s third year, and he catches on quickly.

 “Is that him?” he asks Harry one day after class; Harry’s told them all about Draco, but until then neither he nor Sirius had met him.

 “Yes,” Harry says. “I’m going to marry him.”

 Remus snorts and shakes his head. “I don’t know how you know.”

 “But I know,” Harry says.

 “I know you do,” he says. “Your dad did, too.”

 Harry grins.

 “Try not to annoy him too much, yeah?” Remus tells him. “That was your dad’s technique, and it worked in the end, but I think something different might be faster.”

 Harry blinks. “Like what?”

 “I don’t know.” Remus shrugs. “Give him flowers.”

 *

After

Professor Quirrell tries to kill Scorpius by the end of the year, and somehow, that’s not the biggest one of his professor problems. His biggest problem is that Professor Zabini, the Potions Master and the head of Slytherin, absolutely  hates   him. Scorpius almost fails Potions! And okay, he’s not as good as his dad – he doesn’t think anyone is, sincerely, since he was the youngest potions master until he died – but he loves to read, and he loves school, and he never,   ever   almost fails.   Anything .

Rose tells him not to worry about it, but Scorpius ignores her. If  she   almost failed something, she’d have a stroke or something similar, he’s sure. If he told her to calm down during it, she’d probably curse him, so she can keep her ‘  calm down’ s to herself.

She doesn’t appreciate him telling her so, but Scorpius doesn’t particularly care.

*

 Before

 His friends have a bet; Ron says Malfoy will send the flowers back to Harry – most likely in pieces – and Hermione says he’ll abandon them or throw them at Harry’s face.

 They hear later from a first-year Slytherin that he incendioed them when they arrived to the Slytherin common room.

 “Told you,” Ron says smugly, when, later, Harry gets an envelope with ashes.

 Harry doesn’t let that deter him.

 “You got my flowers,” he says, jumping down from the windowsill he’d been sitting on.

 Malfoy flinches, and then turns to him, glaring.

 “Yes, I did,” he says, cheeks red.

 “You didn’t like them?” Harry asks him.

 “Like?” Malfoy looks at him incredulously. “  Like?   Potter, what the fuck were you thinking?”

 “It was suggested that flowers might get my point across better than our usual bickering.”

 “And what point is that?”

 “That you’re going to marry me some day.”

 Malfoy’s face goes even redder, and he steps on Harry’s foot before turning and walking out.

 *

After

When Scorpius goes back home for the summer, he’s greeted with open arms.

“You’ll need to tell us everything,” Sirius tells him. Scorpius knows he wasn’t meant to hear, but the Halloween he was six – the fifth anniversary of his parents’ death – Sirius and Remus were sitting in front of the fire drinking firewhiskey, and he heard them say no one was ever meant to raise their baby’s baby. That it was a special kind of sorrow.

He tries not to think about it, because he knows they love him, but he also knows they’re right; he’s seen the way their eyes go misty when something he does reminds them of his father.

“Nothing really happened,” he says, shrugging. “I almost failed Potions.”

“Who teaches you?” Remus asks, grabbing his trunk from him.

“Blaise Zabini,” Scorpius tells them.

Teddy frowns. “He was pretty fair with me.”

And the thing is, Scorpius knows he’s been fair with everyone else, too; Rose is half in love with him, and he’s not  unfair   to Scorpius, per se, but he seems to   loathe  him and he doesn’t understand why, which makes him nervous, which makes his Potions less than stellar.

He’s not going to ask why he loathes him, either, because any time he looks at him, Zabini seems to hate him a little more.

“Don’t think about him.” Sirius waves it away. “And I was asking about the letter we got that you had been in an accident?”

“Oh, that,” Scorpius says. “It was nothing. Voldemort tried to come back with the Philosopher’s Stone, and Rose and I went through insane trials to get to the mirror of Erised, and then Voldemort tried to kill me, but Rose had gone to get Dumbledore, so-”

It takes him a minute to realize his family has stopped walking.

“What?” he asks, disoriented.

Sirius and Remus are staring at him like they’ve seen a ghost, and Teddy is looking anywhere but at him.

“What?” he asks again.

“Nothing.” Sirius is the first to recover. “Nothing, just – that name is not said so freely in the Wizarding World, Scorp. And – just – nothing.”

He tries to give him a reassuring smile, but it’s even less convincing than his words.

*

 Before

 Malfoy’s best friend is Blaise Zabini. They’ve practically grown up together, known each other since they were four, consider each other brothers. They spend every summer together in Zabini’s house, since Malfoy’s parents visit France.

 Hermione says it’s creepy for Harry to know that, but he ignores her.

 “Holy fucking-” Zabini flinches when Harry appears in front of him when he’s on his way to the Slytherin common room. “Potter, get the fuck out of my way.”

 People say Zabini’s mother, who’s ‘the most beautiful and enthralling witch in Britain’, if witnesses are to be believed, is a seer, and that he’s got some of it, too. Harry doesn’t think he does, if this is any indication.

 “I’m not going to do that,” he says. “Did Malfoy like my flowers?”

 “He Incendioed them.” Zabini looks at him disbelievingly.

 “But before he did,” Harry says. “Did he like them?”

 Zabini looks like he’s considering cursing him, so before he can do so, Harry continues talking.

 “Because if not, I know other kinds of flowers,” he says. “Glowing sunflowers, or singing peonies-”

 “Oh, yes,   please   send him singing peonies,” Zabini says, amused glint in his eyes and smirk on his face. “He’d   love   that.”

 Harry’s pretty sure that’s a lie, but he nods resolutely anyway.

 *

After

In Scorpius’s second year, when the Chamber of Secrets is opened and Lilianne Crabbe declares Mudbloods will die, Scorpius gets letters from Sirius and Remus, Teddy, his grandma Molly, his uncle Ron, and his aunt Hermione.

Everyone tells him not to be scared – Teddy asks him if he wants to come home, half teasingly, but Scorpius knows he’d come get him in a heartbeat if he said yes – but his aunt Hermione doesn’t; she tells him to be careful, which, to him, sounds like she believes at least  some  of the rumors going around about mythical monsters and Muggleborn murders.

She sends over pages of research, and before Scorpius has had time to go through it all, Rose has done some of her own.

“Look at this,” she tells him, hair bushier than normal because she had double-potions. She shoves a thick book towards her. “No book specifies what the monster in the chamber is, exactly, but there are a few ideas-”

Scorpius only half-listens to the rest of the explanation, wondering what he’d do without her; though everyone keeps telling him to wait, that it’ll eventually happen, it’s become pretty clear to him that he’s not interested in men, or women, or anyone, really, in a romantic or sexual manner.

Rose, however, is his best friend; he’d spend the rest of his life with her without batting an eye, their banter or easy silence more than enough for him to be happy.

“Are you even paying attention?” Rose rolls her eyes at him, and he blinks.

“Yes,” he says.

She rolls her eyes and throws a muggle pen at him.

*

 Before

 “Singing peonies?” Malfoy slaps his hands down on the Gryffindor table, and Harry grins up at him.

 “Cute, right?”

 “Singing peonies?” Malfoy is seething. “What in all bloody hell were you thinking, Potter? They arrived in the middle of Potions!”

 Ron stifles a laugh against the back of his hand; he’d love to have seen Snape’s face.

 “You didn’t like the others.” Harry shrugs.

 Malfoy looks at him disbelievingly. “And you thought I'd like   singing peonies  ?”

 Harry grins up at him, and Malfoy’s face turns a deeper shade of red.

 *

After

Scorpius survives Voldemort a second time, against all odds. Hugo nearly dies, but he and Rose pull him out of the chamber, and, afterwards, Madam Pomfrey says he’s going to make a full recovery.

Sirius, Remus, and Teddy all show up to pick him up at King’s Cross, just like last year, and Remus kisses the top of his head when he sees him.

“Don’t make almost dying a habit, please,” he murmurs against the top of his head. “My dear old heart can’t take it.”

Sirius elbows his ribs. “Your ‘dear old heart’ is in perfect shape, Moony, don’t be melodramatic.”

Remus elbows him back. “Says you, who was openly sobbing about it not two hours ago.”

They begin to bicker, and Teddy throws an arm around Scorpius’s shoulders.

“Don’t get yourself killed, huh, kid?” he says quietly. “Too many people have died already.”

*

 Before

 Harry masters his Patronus at thirteen, thanks to Remus’s teaching, but they don’t actually see it in school until fourth year. All of it is theoretical, of course. They're not expected to be able to do the spell until sixth or seventh year.

 Harry reads about it: Patronuses matching, if two people are meant for each other. He's sure Malfoy’s Patronus will match his, but he’ll have to keep guessing, since Malfoy refuses to even try the spell in class, color high on his cheeks.

 “I can tutor you,” Harry offers him, when class is over.

 “You,” Malfoy deadpans. “Tutoring me.”

 “Don’t be a prick,” Harry says mildly, and Malfoy smirks; it’s true that he has much better grades than Harry does, but no one is quite as good as Harry is in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Malfoy’s smart enough to know that, whether or not he likes it. “I’ll tutor you. I can do a Patronus since last year.”

 “You can?” Malfoy, for the first time, actually looks a little bit intrigued, and Harry grins.

 He waves his wand, and, sure enough, his Patronus slowly forms a stag, which then runs around the room before stopping in front of Malfoy; open-mouthed, bright-eyed Malfoy.

 “Potter, that’s gorgeous,” Malfoy says, before he can stop himself.

 Harry grins, and Malfoy looks away, uncomfortable.

 “Don’t be weird about it,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I know how to recognize talent when I see it.”

 “I’m sure you do,” Harry says smoothly, and before Malfoy can do anything, he kisses his cheek and walks out the door, leaving him gaping behind him.

 *

After

In Scorpius’s third year, Pansy Parkinson escapes Azkaban. Sirius writes him no less than half a dozen letters telling him not to interact with her if he ever sees her, and he doesn’t understand why he thinks he would.

He gets it later, when he and Rose overhear Headmistress McGonagall explaining that Parkinson ended up in Azkaban for betraying his parents, selling them out to Voldemort.

Scorpius doesn’t feel like he can breathe.

And then.

And  then .

He meets her.

And Theodore Nott.

“He was our friend!” She’s crying, tears and snot dripping down her face, but the wand she’s pointing at Nott is unflinching. “He was a  brother  to me, Theo, how could you-”

“He married Potter!” Nott spits out the name like it’s physically hurting him. “He married Potter, he had a son! You knew the prophecy-”

“But he didn’t!” Parkinson screams. “The Dark Lord didn’t until you told him you unbelievable piece of-”

The light from the spell Nott casts is blinding, but Parkinson is the most impressive dueler Scorpius has seen in his life, because she counters it wordlessly; it’s quick, it’s bright, and it’s brutal, and when it’s over, a body hits the floor.

“I never would’ve betrayed your parents,” Parkinson tells him, staring emptily down at Nott’s lifeless body. “I never would’ve done that to Draco.”

She moves in – secretly – with Sirius and Remus not two weeks later.

*

 Before

 Harry tutors Malfoy when he has trouble with his Patronus. Remus winks at him when he tells him about it, and Harry can’t help but feel quite giddy, too. It's the first time Malfoy’s asked for his help in anything, and Harry can already tell this is where it starts.

 “You need to concentrate on a happy memory,” Harry tells him, frowning, when the light from Malfoy’s wand extinguishes once more.

 “How am I supposed to think of something happy right now?” Malfoy snaps at him, hand running through his hair. Harry is quiet; though they’ve only done this three times before, Malfoy had been getting better, not worse. This is definitely worse.

 “Why not?” Harry asks.

 Malfoy looks at him disbelievingly. “Have you heard nothing of what’s happening out there Potter?”

 Of course Harry has; Sirius and Remus talk about it in hushed tones, about ‘Death Eaters’ about someone who’s named himself Voldemort. He's murdering muggles and Muggleborns.

 Harry knows it’s building up to something, and the Ministry’s doing nothing.

 “Why are you worried?” he asks, instead of answering.

 Malfoy can’t quite look at him, and Harry wracks his brain.

Cousin Cissy,  Sirius had sneered, when Harry had first mentioned Malfoy,  and her Blood Purist husband, as in-laws. Delighting.

 “Have your parents joined him?” Harry asks. “Voldemort?”

 Malfoy’s jaw clenches, and he swallows, looks away.

 That’s as good answer as any.

 *

After

In Scorpius’s fourth year, he almost dies twice. Once, when he’s entered in the Triwizard Tournament, the youngest competitor in the history of the game, and the second time when he tries to ask Rose to the Yule Ball.

“Not as - a date or anything.” He stumbles both over his words and over his feet, and he’d fall on his face if it weren’t the fact that Rose grabs the back of his jumper to stop him. “Thanks. As friends. I don’t feel anything for you that way.”

She throws a look at him and he winces.

“I don’t mean that you’re not – you deserve to have people in love with you, and I'm sure you do, I just - I don’t - I don’t feel anything like that, for anyone, and – you're like a sister, and-”

“I’ll go to the ball with you, Scorpius.” She laughs and then winks at him. “And don’t worry. You're like a brother, too. We could never date.”

He feels the knot of anxiety loosen in his chest.

“Thank you,” he says.

“But you better pick me up at seven sharp,” she says, nose high in the air. “And you better  look nice . I’ll take nothing less than a gentleman.”

He grins goofily at her. “As you should.”

*

 Before

 Harry tries not to think too hard about what they are; Malfoy’s been stressed about his family, about Voldemort, and apparently, the way he’s dealing with that is by snogging Harry.

 “Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asks between kisses, as he usually does.

 “No,” Malfoy says, as he usually does.

 They’re lying in Harry’s bed, with the curtains closed with a sticking charm and no less than three silencing charms around them, and Harry’s been okay with this the last two dozen times, he really has been, but this time he feels tears against his cheeks and he can’t help but pull away.

 “Are you okay?” he asks, because Malfoy is rubbing at his eyes furiously.

 “I’m fine,” Malfoy snaps at him. “Just - kiss me again.”

 Harry doesn’t worry about what they are, because he knows they’re going to get married. He doesn’t worry about labels. He worries about Malfoy, though.

 “Tell me what’s wrong,” Harry says gently.

 “Stop, Potter,” Malfoy snaps. “We’re not   friends  . We’re not in a relationship. Stop caring about me.”

 “I’ll always care about you,” Harry says honestly. “And I think you want me to, too. Tell me what’s wrong.”

 “Are you going to kiss me again?” Malfoy asks.

 Harry shales his head, and Malfoy’s lips purse.

 “Fine,” he snaps. “Have a good day then.”

 And he leaves, not bothering with Ron’s incredulous look when he slips out of Harry’s bed in the middle of the afternoon.

 *

After

“Umbridge is a bloody arsehole.” Rose drops herself next to him in the Great Hall, and Scorpius nearly flinches; he was immersed on his book about Dark Magic, because Voldemort is back – the mass murderer who killed his parents is  back   - and the Ministry is doing nothing about it. “She’s teaching the most ridiculous, unbelievably tame and censored Defense Against the Dark Magic course I've taken in my   life  . I   hate  her.”

“Yeah,” Scorpius mutters distractedly. “I do, too.”

Rose rolls her eyes at him. “What are you doing?”

Scorpius looks at her, chewing on his lower lip. “I think I need to talk to Headmistress McGonagall.”

*

 Before

 Harry finds Malfoy in the hidden corridor behind the largest tapestry in the castle; he has the Marauders Map to thank for it.

 “No one’s seen you all day,” he says.

 Malfoy doesn’t look up from where he has his head between his knees. He's clutching a newspaper in his hand.

 “What happened?” Harry asks, for what feels like the thousandth time.

 Malfoy exhales shakily and extends the paper to him.

 Harry, surprised, takes it.

 DEATH EATER ATTACK ON EASTERN MUGGLE VILLAGE. THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN MISSING, SEVENTEEN DEAD, AND THOUSANDS TERRIFIED.

 Harry sits next to Malfoy.

 “My father was there,” Malfoy says, muffled.

 Harry swallows. “Is he okay?”

 He doesn’t really care, but he thinks Malfoy might. He’s proved wrong when Malfoy laughs sharply.

 “Okay?” Malfoy echoes. “  Okay  ? He could’ve died there, Potter, and he’d deserve it.”

 “He would,” Harry agrees. “It doesn’t mean you’d have to feel good about it.”

 Malfoy finally pulls his head from his knees, if only to glare at Harry.

 “I hate you,” he says, eyes brimming with tears. “I hate you, you always – you always know, you say you’re going to marry me, you say we’re going to be friends, you perform a bloody Patronus at thirteen, anything you want is yours and it’s not fucking fair!”

 “I wish you didn’t have to go through this,” Harry says quietly. “I want for this not to happen. I’m not getting that.”

 Malfoy kisses him again, and this time, Harry doesn’t stop him because of the tears.

 *

After

Remus and Sirius have been talking about it in whispers; Scorpius knows they think he doesn’t hear, but he does; he’s heard all of it.

“I want to join the Order of the Phoenix,” he tells Headmistress McGonagall. It draws her up short.

“What?” she asks him.

“I know about the Order,” he says. “I read it. My father had a picture.”

McGonagall’s lips are tight. “You are underage, Mr. Potter-Malfoy.”

She’s the only one who calls him by both of his last names; everyone else only bothers with Potter.

“So?” he asks boldly. “I’m the Chosen One. This is supposed to be my job.”

“You are a child,” McGonagall says. “It was never supposed to be a child.”

“He killed my parents!” Scorpius yells, before he can stop himself. “Because of him, I have nothing.”

McGonagall levels him with an unwavering glare.

“Tell that to Miss Granger-Weasley,” she says coolly. “Tell that to Mr. Lupin and Mr. Black. To Edward.”

Scorpius looks away guiltily. “They know I have to do this.”

“They’re your family,” McGonagall tells him. “And I need you to listen to me when I say that no one regrets the death of Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter like I do. I watched them grow up, I watched them fall in love, and I watched them die long before it was their time to, and that is something I'd never wish upon anyone. But you are a child, Mr. Potter-Malfoy, and I will not let you fight this war.”

He leaves her office feeling more helpless than he felt when he went in it.

*

 Before

 Their graduation is a quiet affair, filled with equal parts joy and dread because nothing is free of its own form of sorrow, not lately. Draco and Harry take a walk to Hogsmeade, holding hands, just to hear the silence, until Draco stops walking.

 “Something is off,” he says.

 “What is it?” Harry asks, readying his wand.

 “Something is-”

 A figure steps out of the shadows, and Draco’s wand is in his hand in seconds.

 “Mr. Malfoy,” a cold, deep voice says. “Mr. Potter.”

 The hood falls back, and though Harry has never seen Voldemort before – no one but his most loyal followers has – he knows who he is immediately.

 “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

 “I can’t say the pleasure is mutual,” Harry says coldly, squeezing Draco’s hand tighter.

 “I don’t tolerate such disrespect from my followers,” Voldemort says, colder than Harry. There’s a tense pause. “But, I suppose, I can make an exception. Just this once.”

 “What do you want?” Draco’s throat is too dry.

 “I want you to join me.” Voldemort spreads his hands, dark wand glinting on the inside of his sleeve, in easy reach. Draco isn’t stupid enough to think them seeing it is a coincidence. “Be a part of our cause. We’re going to rule the world.”

 “No,” Draco says, before Harry can. “Never.”

 “No one turns me down.” Voldemort is looking at him dangerously. “No one says no to me and survives.”

 Harry sees hooded people slipping out from the shadows, and before he can think about it, he squeezes Draco’s hand tighter and apparates them away.

 They stumble into Sirius’s and Remus’s, who immediately stand, making everyone else silent.

 “Harry, Draco.” Molly laughs nervously. “We weren’t expecting you so soon.”

 The house is deadly quiet, which means Teddy must be with someone else for the night; he’s just three months old, Harry’s little brother, and he loves him. He's glad he’s not here for this.

 “We want to join the Order,” Draco says. “Now.”

 Everyone looks at Harry. “You’ll need any help you can get.”

 “Yes,” Mad-eye Moody says gruffly. “We will.”

 *

After

The Order of the Phoenix is reinstated, Scorpius knows. He also knows that he is banned from it. He has a long, loud argument about it with Remus and Sirius.

“My dads joined!” Scorpius snaps angrily. “They helped!”

“And look where that got them!” Sirius rarely raises his voice, but he does now. “Look where that got them, Scorpius! In an early grave, leaving their one-year-old  alone !”

“They died for what was right!”

“They died for  you!”  Remus exclaims. “They died to keep you safe, to make sure you would have a long, happy life-”

“I can’t have a long happy life while innocent people out there are dying!”

“Innocent people are  always  dying,” Sirius snaps. “And you cannot save every one of them.”

“I can  try,”  Scorpius says. He looks desperately at Pansy, leaning against the counter with a glass of wine in her hand. “I should be a part of this.”

Her lips purse. “Your dads wanted to protect you. Draco and Potter died to protect you.”

Scorpius leaves the room without another word.

 *

 Before

 Blaise sees it on a cloudless November day. He's staring at the sky, and it’s suddenly in front of him, the baby in the crib, the bright flash, Draco’s body on the ground.

 He lurches forward, throat convulsing as he vomits everything he had for breakfast until he’s heaving, stomach empty but head still spinning; his mother – a seer, experienced, used to it – doesn’t have a hard time after her visions, but Blaise doesn’t get them often, and when he does, he usually needs a few minutes to recover.

 He needs more than that after seeing his best friend’s lifeless body on the ground.

 Before he knows it, he’s apparated to Draco and Potter’s, and he’s knocking on the door before he can stop himself.

You never,  ever   tell someone about their death,   his mother used to say to him, when he was little and still unused to it.   It never brings anything good, and you can never stop it  .

 Blaise needs to make an exception.

 “Zabini.” Potter sounds a little surprised when he opens the door, and he scratches his ribs, looking around. “Everything okay?”

 “I need to talk to Draco,” Blaise says.

 Potter looks at him and then lets him in wordlessly, not questioning him; he’s learned not to, by now. Draco’s and Blaise’s friendship is something no one else really understands, and Potter’s stopped trying.

 He finds Draco up in his lab, and he closes the door, uncaring that Potter had been right behind him.

 “Well, fuck you, too, Zabini!” Potter calls from behind the door.

 Blaise ignores him.

 “Draco,” he says.

 “Give me a minute.” Draco’s concentrated in what he’s brewing, as he always is. It's just been two years since they left Hogwarts: two years of the Order, two years of his Potions Mastery, two years of living with Potter and being   happy  .

 Blaise hopes that’s enough to convince him to keep him alive.

 “Draco,” Blaise repeats, heart pounding.

 “I can’t stop stirring, Blaise.”

 “  Draco  .”

 Draco ignores him.

 “Draco!” Blaise snaps, snatching the ladle he’s stirring with from his hand.

 “Stop, you’ll ruin it!” Draco finally looks at him, and draws up short. “What happened?”

 With a wave of his hand, the fire underneath the cauldron dims, and the ladle begins stirring by itself, even though Draco insists doing things by hand is what makes his potions so effective.

 “You’re going to die,” Blaise says.

 Draco blinks, evidently unsettled, but he perches himself on his table and crosses his arms, shrugging uneasily. “We’re all going to die.”

 “You’re going to   die  ,” Blaise repeats. “Soon. If you have a baby.”

 Draco stares at him.

 “This isn’t funny,” he says.

 “I’m not joking,” Blaise responds.

 Draco clenches his jaw. “Harry told you we had a pregnancy scare, didn’t he? Is that what this little joke is about? He's getting me back?”

 “Merlin, Draco, no!” Blaise snaps. “Listen to me. If you have a baby, you will  die.”

 He doesn’t know how it’s connected yet, can’t really explain it, but he knows the baby has something to do with it. The person who killed Draco wanted to get to the baby, and Draco was only in the way, only an inconvenience.

 He can’t let Draco die like that.

 “Leave Potter,” Blaise pleads. “Don’t adopt. I don’t care, just don’t, don’t have a baby, don’t die for them, Draco, please-”

 “Stop,” Draco tells him. “No. I don’t want to hear it.”

 “Draco-”

 “Your mother always says you can’t change what’s going to happen after you’ve seen it.”

 “She’s wrong,” Blaise snaps desperately. “She has to be.”

 Draco doesn’t look at him as he throws him out of his lab.

 *

After

“I need your help.”

“You’ve got it.” Rose doesn’t even ask what he needs help with.

“Voldemort created Horcruxes,” he says.

Someone left a note of it in his potions book. He doesn’t know who, and he doesn’t know how they knew, but he knows he needs to figure out who it was, and why they’re helping him. The adults don’t want them to be a part of it, he knows, and he also knows he’s in his sixth year, which means Rose is on her seventh year and it’s their last year here together. They need to figure things out  now .

“I don’t really understand what they are,” he admits. “But I need to figure out how to use them against him.”

“Let’s start looking, then,” she says.

*

 Before

 Blaise knows what’s happened when Draco can’t quite look him in the eyes.

 “You’re pregnant,” he says, disbelievingly.

 Draco clenches his jaw. “Yes.”

 Blaise stares at him. It’s always been them; Blaise-and-Draco, joined at the hip since they were four years old, Blaise-and-Draco, staying up late at night talking about the universe because even though neither of them wanted to admit it, they were just kids and terrified not too long ago, and hypotheticals were always much better than reality, for either of them; Blaise-and-Draco, eyes shining at Draco’s wedding because even if Blaise doesn’t particularly like Potter, anything that makes Draco happy is worth it on his list, Blaise-and-Draco, inseparable until death, never meant to be apart.

 He was never meant to live without the only person who understood the deepest, most twisted parts of him and the most ridiculous, silly ones and doesn’t judge him for any of them.

 “I’m happy about it,” Draco says, carefully. “So is Harry. Even if the circumstances aren’t ideal.”

 They aren’t, not with a war coming.

 “Did you tell Potter?” he asks. “About what will happen?”

 Draco glares at him. “No. And you won’t, either.”

 Blaise says, “I won’t promise that.”

 *

After

“It’s not your fault.” Zabini’s voice sounds hollow.

“What?” Scorpius asks, frantically trying to remember where he put his wand; he doesn’t think the professor will hurt him, not really, but at the same time, it’s more than a little disquieting to wake and find him staring at him in his dorm while everyone else is asleep.

“It’s not your fault,” Zabini repeats, louder. “I saw what was going to happen - I told Draco he was going to die because of you. He ignored me.”

Scorpius swallows, mind racing. His parents – they’d known?

“I told him to get rid of you.” Zabini’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before. “I told him to leave Potter. I didn’t - I wanted him to live. He was my best friend, he was everything.”

Rose is Scorpius’s best friend, and there’s nothing romantic between them; that doesn’t matter. He can’t imagine his life without her, his wedding, his eventual children not knowing her, her existence, deleted from the world except for the people who’d remember her, him, always mourning.

He'd never get over that.

He’d never get over her.

“You should’ve made him.” It takes Scorpius a moment to realize it’s he who talked; if he knew something was going to lead to Rose’s death, if he couldn’t stop it – what would he do?

 Die with her , he thinks in a daze. It’s always been them, Scorpius-and-Rose, joined at the hip since she saw his little baby face, Scorpius-and-Rose, reading until dawn and quizzing each other because they’d be damned if there was anything they didn’t know, Scorpius-and-Rose, entering the Chamber of Secrets for Hugo because he’s Rose’s annoying little brother and she’d die before anything happened to him, and if Rose is dead then Scorpius is dead, too.

He doesn’t know how to exist without her.

He thinks, from Zabini’s expression, he knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“And have him be unhappy for the rest of his life?” he asks. “That’s its own kind of death, and if Draco was going to die I was not going to be the one to do it.” Scorpius swallows. “And now I look at you, and – it's like I'm seeing a ghost, every day. And then you almost  died  today and - I hate you, Potter, but Draco’s going to have my head the moment I die if I let anything happens to you. That’s why. I know you’ve been wondering.”

 Why I hate you. Why I can’t look at you. Why nothing you do will ever be good enough, why I could never grow to care about you, why everything has to be cold and bloodless and calculating.

Scorpius doesn’t think knowing the answer makes him feel better.

“You need to stop what you’re doing,” Zabini tells him. “I told you about the Horcruxes to warn you, not to lead you to your death.”

Scorpius has never really known how to do what’s best for his own good; he’s told he gets that from his father.

*

 Halloween, Godric’s Hollow

 When it happens, Harry’s standing on the stairs, kissing his husband’s lips with Scorpius Harry Potter-Malfoy up in his crib.

 The explosion by the door is deafening.

 “Leave.” He thinks he’s saying it; his ears are ringing too much to hear himself, but he thinks he’s saying it as he clumsily pushes Draco up the stairs. “Leave, I'll hold him back. Grab Scorpius, run!”

 “Harry, I love you.”

 It’s the last thing he hears; there’s flashes afterwards, light, and spells, and Harry keeps up more than well enough, but eventually, there’s a green flash and his body hits the floor.

 There’s two matching green flashes in Scorpius’s bedroom a few minutes later, but only one is successful.

 *

The Final Battle, Forbidden Forest

Scorpius dies in the Forbidden Forest, and just for a few minutes, he gets to see his parents. He's never seen them before, not like this.

“Did I do enough?” he asks them, because they’re looking at him with so much love and sorrow he can’t tell which is caused by him and which is felt for him.

“You did more than anyone could’ve reasonably asked,” Draco tells him. He grabs his cheeks and kisses the top of his head, and then Harry kisses his temple. “You did more than you should’ve been responsible for.”

“We’re proud of you,” Harry tells him, and then Scorpius is alive, again, and there’s Hogwarts and Headmistress McGonagall and Teddy throws him his wand and Voldemort is dead, once and for all.

Scorpius feels like he can finally be his own person.


"Have you ever kissed anyone?"

Sae-byeok stiffens. Ji-yeong is both smart and slightly irritating, seeming to know which questions will and won't prod her. It doesn't make the air any lighter. Still, she thinks she'd rather be here with her than anyone else. There's more tension and the foreboding of death around the corner in the air than oxygen, but Sae-byeok hasn't ever kissed anyone, so she shakes her head no.

Ji-yeong laughs. For a moment, Sae-byeok thinks she's being made fun of, not that it matters much to her. But Ji-yeong laughs in a way that gives away her momentary joy, and Sae-byeok somehow gathers that the girl's just happy with her answer. The reason beats her.

"So you've never had your first kiss, huh..." Ji-yeong sighs contently.

Sae-byeok envies Ji-yeong's ease. She can't even relax while sleeping, let alone while she's awake and sitting on the steps with the latter. She figures it has everything to do with why Ji-yeong's here, and what her life was like before; it's kind of clear that she doesn't know what she's doing, nor does she really seem to care. Again, Sae-byeok envies her.

"Does it matter?" she asks, looking down at her rough, calloused palms.

Ji-yeong hums, "Well, do you want it to?"

Sae-byeok is silent. Her hands look like maps, littered with ley lines that cross and connect with each other. She struggles to find a start or an end to the networks that overlap one another, eyes tracing along the mixture of natural lines and scars. Maybe it's because they're trembling too much that she keeps losing her trail. She can't feel the tips of her fingers.

"One of us is gonna die soon and if it's you, won't you want to have kissed someone first?"

Ji-yeong asks a valid question, and Sae-byeok has nothing to lose but her life.

"...sure."

Ji-yeong doesn't say anything, instead shuffling down from her two steps above Sae-byeok's, until they're shoulder to shoulder.  In such close proximity, Sae-byeok stiffens again. Ji-yeong is warm, but not warm enough to bring the heat back into her shaky hands. Just warm enough for Sae-byeok to not want to back away. She studies the colour of Ji-yeong's eyes for a moment, then looks back down at her lap and balls her hands into fists.

"Well, me too. Can I kiss you then?"

Sae-byeok's eyes widen involuntarily. She whips her head up to find Ji-yeong's mirthful eyes and pinkened lips, curved up into a smile.

"You... Haven't kissed anyone either?" she asks, albeit hesitantly.

"Oh, I have," Ji-yeong laughs airily, then shakes her head, "but you haven't. It takes two people to kiss, remember?"

Sae-byeok purses her lips, looking away. They're dry and chapped, bitten in some places out of anxiety. She can still taste metal if she presses her tongue hard enough into the left corner of her bottom lip.

"I still don't know your name yet, so technically this can be a first for me, too- my first time kissing a stranger."

Sae-byeok blinks. The fists her hands are in have loosened onto her knees, fingers spreading out across green fabric.

"Okay," she mutters, purposefully soft. She's nervous.

"Okay?" Ji-yeong repeats.

Sae-byeok nods. "Okay."

Ji-yeong's hands are soft on Sae-byeok's face. Perhaps they aren't soft, per se, but just softer than Sae-byeok's. Or perhaps they're not soft at all, littered with callouses, but it's just the way that she's touching her that feels soft. Sae-byeok has never had her face cupped so tenderly, warm fingers splayed out across her cheeks and jaw. She closes her eyes from the way it shrouds comfort over her, and almost feels like she could fall asleep on these steps with her head in Ji-yeong's hands. But she might not wake up if she did.

So Sae-byeok blinks. She looks into Ji-yeong's eyes instead, the eyes that have been watching her for a while now. The eyes that have watched her weaken without judgement. Ji-yeong offers her a smile. For a moment it feels like sunlight on Sae-byeok's skin- to be looked at like this. To be held like this. To be so close to a warm body, if only for a moment.

"Ready?" asks Ji-yeong, as she inches closer.

Sae-byeok nods into her hands.

"Okay. Close your eyes," Ji-yeong whispers, close enough to let the warm exhale of her words flicker across Sae-byeok's lips.

Sae-byeok nods again, does as she's told. She had never anticipated letting her guard down on command for anybody. But she doesn't have the chance to rethink it, because Ji-yeong's lips are warm and soft, painfully soft, as they're pressed against her own. She tenses up, fighting a bodily shudder, and squeezes her eyes shut even tighter.

But Ji-yeong is calm. She's always so calm. Sae-byeok can feel the ease in how her thumbs draw circles into her cheeks. It takes a few more for her scrunched up face to smoothen out under Ji-yeong's touch, and a few more for her lips to part into Ji-yeong's.

Kisses are warm, Sae-byeok learns. And they're soft. Impossibly soft. Ji-yeong's lips are soft where hers are not, moving slowly where hers are frozen. She needs a moment to compose herself; her heart is pounding in her ears. Warmth and a sensation she's never felt before thrums gently beneath her skin, rushing through her veins. She follows it until she's following Ji-yeong's lips with her own, and they're melting into each other.

Sae-byeok grows breathless against Ji-yeong's lips. Even then, she doesn't really want to pull away from their soft, wet warmth. Her lip stings when Ji-yeong runs her tongue across it, still bitten raw from yesterday. She doesn't mind, instead trying the same thing on the latter. Ji-yeong makes the softest of sounds when Sae-byeok licks her lip. It tastes as sweet as it sounds.

Sae-byeok feels a certain kind of loss hollowing out her bones for just a moment when Ji-yeong parts from her. Her eyes flicker open, meeting the latter's. The hands on her face are warm, warmer than before. Sae-byeok just doesn't realise that it's her cheeks that are heated with colour. She breathes deeply to refill her lungs. Ji-yeong watches her with a smile.

"Good?" she asks, tilting her head to the side.

With her mind in an unfamiliar but pleasant haze, Sae-byeok nods dumbly. It causes the latter to breathe out a short laugh.

"You can be really cute, you know that?"

It feels like Ji-yeong's hands are growing warmer on her face. When they're gone, Sae-byeok finally realises she's been blushing.

They go back to sitting side by side, both facing the faux concrete wall in front of them. The silence between them feels okay, but the air outside their little bubble keeps closing in on them. Bit by bit, what little comfort they've created for each other is destined to shatter for good. The numbers go down. They're getting closer to the end of this game, and by twisted design, one of their lives.

"We're almost out of time... Should we play something now?"

"...yeah, we should."

Ji-yeong stands after Sae-byeok. But Sae-byeok lingers by the archway that leads out of their little compound. She waits until the latter looks back at her.

"What are you waiting for?" Ji-yeong asks, hands stuffed into her pockets.

Sae-byeok hesitates. She looks down at her dirty shoes, at the sand beneath them, then back up at Ji-yeong. It's not like her to stall, she knows. It's also not like her to ask anything of anyone

"Can I-" she shakes her head, "no, nevermind."

Ji-yeong makes her way back to Sae-byeok, until she's standing right in front of her. Sae-byeok looks down at the shorter latter with hesitant eyes. Ji-yeong knows.

"Just one more," Sae-byeok whispers. It hurts. "Please."

"Okay," Ji-yeong murmurs, carefully slinging her arms around Sae-byeok's neck. "Just one more. Just for you."

Sae-byeok hugs Ji-yeong closer by the waist. They press their lips together in a way that's tender, but they're unable to hide the desperation. There's not enough time. One of them is going to die, and Sae-byeok just wants to feel this close to someone for as long as she can. She tries to tell Ji-yeong as much in the way she kisses her fervently, inexperienced but not insecure. And maybe Ji-yeong understands. Maybe she says she understands with her fingertips on the back of Sae-byeok's neck, drawing soft patterns into the skin there. That feeling returns, running through her veins like warm electricity. It's ironic that Sae-byeok feels so alive.

It hurts to rip themselves apart from one another, but there's no time. There's no time, and they have to play the game. Someone has to die. Someone's going to die.

"You're a good kisser, stranger," Ji-yeong breathes, and Sae-byeok hates the finality in her voice.

"...it's Sae-byeok."

"Hm? What is?"

"My name. Kang Sae-byeok is my name."

"Kang Sae-byeok. It's pretty. It suits you."

Ji-yeong can still smile. Sae-byeok's eyes burn. They head out together to play someone's last game.

The only thing that pulses beneath Sae-byeok's cold skin is the aftershock of a gunshot still ringing in her ears. Sae-byeok doesn't sleep that night- doesn't even close her eyes in fear of the smile she'll see.

That was Ji-yeong's last. Sae-byeok wonders if it was her last, too. She doesn't mind if it was.

She never wants to kiss anyone ever again.

They'll just end up dead.


"Dr. Camille O'Connell," said the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman's secretary over the intercom. "Your three o'clock is here. Hope Mikaelson."

"Send her in, please," Camille, "Cami," sighs as she gets up from her desk.

Last appointment of a Friday.

Just one more three-hour session and the Psychologist can let her hair down for the weekend.

It shouldn't be too hard of a session.

Lately, every patient she'd seen had been easy,.

The brilliant blonde had been able to figure out their psychosis, phobia, or neuroses as soon as they opened their mouths.

How hard can a teenage girl be?

Cami let out another long sigh, standing to straighten her three-piece female body suit.

She was never really into the whole white coat thing.

Cami preferred suits that made her look feminine.

The knock on her door broke her musing as a lovely sprite of an auburn-haired teenager emerged, looking bored and pissed off.

This teenage girl could not be much over five feet and strolled in Cami's office like she was ready to go Braveheart and set her newly appointed therapist on fire.

'Oh my god,' Cami said to herself, 'perhaps this particular teenage girl will be harder than I thought.'

Cami smiled cordially and held her hand out.

"Hope," Cami speaks to her new patient in her softest, most soothing tone, "my name is Cami, and I'm excited for us to work together-

Hope quickly cut off Cami sharply, "yeah, yeah, you're the one who's going to fix all my problems. Where's the couch?!"

Cami's left eye immediately twitches at the teenager's rude behavior.

Hope points to the white couch in Cami's office, "Oh, look at that, I found it," Hope plops down, putting her hands behind her back, "Okay, go ahead, diagnose me, and I'll be on my way."

Cami coughed indignantly.

Perhaps this was Karma for her run of an easy streak the past month.

It would seem Hope Mikaleson was going to be very difficult.

"Okay?...., make yourself at home. I'm Cami again if you didn't catch it." Cami politely continues.

Hope turns to Cami and narrows her piercing azure eyes at her.

Cami could tell Hope wasn't buying her put-on, likable woman-shrink persona.

"Hi," Hope mumbles warily, "Cami."

Cami could feel her left eye twitching again.

What the fuck was this girl's problem?

Oh right.

'I'm supposed to be the one that figures that out.' Cami amused herself jokingly.

The therapist with a doctoral degree, how she still wonders with all those long nights she moonlighted as a bartender, smirks as she points to a chair across her.

"I was going to offer you that chair because a couch seemed cliche," Cami laughs out loud, "but I guess a couch works just fine for you."

"Well, at least you have a sense of humor" Hope turns to Cami with a slight smirk that brings out her dimples, "congratulations, I don't find you totally intolerable."

"Yay, lucky me." Cami pats herself on the back dryly.

Hope sat up on the couch, crossing her short legs, catching the Psychologist, a former bartender, by surprise.

"I don't know why I'm here," Hope declares snobbishly.

"Tell me why you think you're here?"

A quick flash of annoyance lit on Hope's pretty face, "Because the people in my life suck, and they finally drove me crazy!"

Cami nodded, writing in her notebook, "Okay, that's a good start."

Hope looks up at the clock hanging on the office wall.

"It's only been 5 minutes...." Hope moans miserably, " I was hoping that confession would have burned more time."

Cami moaned out loud as well, "Yeah, I was hoping it would too. You're like.... not a nice person to be around."

Hope snaps her attention to Cami, "Excuse me?!"

"Did you ever think," Cami diagnoses, "that maybe people in your life don't suck, that it's you, and you're the one that drove them crazy?"

"Wait, what?!

Cami shook her head, twiddling her pen in her hand, "Yeah, it has only been 5 minutes, and I already can feel you driving me crazy, Hope Mikaelson."

"What kind of $20 online degree Psychology technique is this crap?!" Hope screams out.

Cami lets out a joyous laugh, "reverse psychology."

A few moments pass before Hope lets out a giggle, and both females share a laugh.

So, if you're this great psychologist, why don't you tell me what's wrong with me and save us both some time?"

Cami cocked her head at the teen.

"That's not how it works, Hope." Cami explains, "you talk, and I listen."

Hope sighs, "Okay, so what do I talk about?"

Cami shrugs, "Why do you think, and answer honestly, you are here?"

Hope paused, processing this.

"Because I messed up and lost everything that ever mattered to me." She admits.

So then," supplied Cami, "why don't you start from the beginning."

Hope smiled darkly, hating the irony in what she was about to say, and it carried over into her voice.

"Well, I guess you could make the argument. It all started when Ethan Machado came back to bite me in the ass without ever making an appearance."

\\

3 weeks earlier...

Every day at seven A.M., Milton Quincy Greasley would go to the Mystic Falls bus station, sit on the same bench, the same spot, and stare.

The boy would stare at the bus that came in and went out, stared at the people who got on and off the bus, and then he'd return to Kaleb's house at eleven P.M.

Milton would watch families reunite and families go their separate ways, whether their youngest is off to college or the parents are going to a lovely retirement home.

He watched lonely people start their adventures and groups of friends end their adventures.

He watched how the unloved would wait for their families until the last second and ran towards the bus doors before they shut.

He watched as a few, who had their lives together, would confidently walk on or off the bus, like they were ready to start their careers, and lives.

Milton knew he was waiting for someone, but they seemed like they would never come.

"MG." Lizzie's voice broke through his brooding as MG looked up at the smiling face of his girlfriend.

'Right on schedule.' MG thought to himself gratefully.

The blonde had changed her morning route for her runs to sit with her boyfriend afterwards.

Lizzie sat down next to him, pulling her earbuds out and interlocking their arms together as she placed her head on his shoulder.

"You still miss Ethan, huh?" Lizzie asks him, squeezing his hand comfortingly.

MG bit his lip, wanting to choose his following words carefully, "What he did to Josie was wrong, and I'm pissed at him just as much as you are...."

The teen football player paused, holding back a sob, "but he was still my best friend, Liz."

"No, I get it," Lizzie chuckled sadly, "Penelope won't say it, but she is pretty torn up about Maya leaving too."

MG shook his head, wanting to change the subject.

"So, did you guys hear back from the board committee yet?"

Lizzie tensed and picked her head up so the couple could see each other properly.

"Don't even get me started," Lizzie growled out, "Hope is suspended indefinitely from the squad."

MG sighed; he knew the repercussion of the brawl at Ethan's house would have horrible ripple effects on his friends' lives.

"Maybe, she can come back before Nationals," Lizzie frowned, grabbing her head for the migraine that was forming, "but she's definitely done for preliminaries, which means I just lost two of my best cheerleaders."

MG puts a supportive hand on Lizzie's tensing shoulder, "It'll be okay. I know you can get through this."

Lizzie took a deep breath, trying to suppress her mounting anger and accidentally unleashing it at her caring and loveable boyfriend.

"MG, how many football scholarships were given to your seniors last year?"

The dark-skinned boy threw his hands up, trying to remember, "two? Maybe three?

Lizzie laughed defeatedly, "That's three more than any of our senior cheerleaders got."

The blonde Head Cheerleader felt herself wanting to break out in tears as she saw the future she had worked so hard for slowly slipping away from her grasp.

"I've been scouted since freshman year," Lizzie says to the boy, trying to make him understand her plight, "because the college scouts think I'm extraordinary...

MG leans in, listening more attentively, knowing that his usually strong and guarded girlfriend was letting herself be vulnerable with him.

"Being a champion? Becoming a 3-time National champion? That makes me extraordinary." Lizzie declares. "And if I'm not? If I can't get this squad to win this year. Then there's go any chances, I have to a scholarship."

Lizzie can no longer fight the tears as a few drops roll down her reddening cheeks.

Lizzie wasn’t an academia like her sister Josie.

She wasn't rich like Hope and with a future job waiting for her when her father retired.

Without that scholarship Lizzie was nothing.

MG quickly wraps his girlfriend in his arms, tenderly kissing her on the forehead.

"It's all going to work out, Lizzie." he promises her, "if anyone can do this, I know it's you."

Lizzie murmurs out, "Thanks, sweetcheeks."

MG grins widely as he feels Lizzie poke his dimples, feeling accomplished in helping his girl feel better.

Lizzie gets up and holds her hand out to MG.

"Come on, handsome." Lizzie says, "You still have me."

MG feels his heart swell with love and relief as he takes his girlfriend's hand and interlocks their fingers.

A familiar screech indicated a bus had arrived right on schedule pulling in.

MG pauses and watches the usual people getting off, and he feels that familiar feeling of dread again.

"MG?" Lizzie calls out, curious as to why her boyfriend was so fascinated by the bus that had pulled up.

MG turned to her, a look of forlornness on his face.

"Lizzie, if anything ever happened to Josie," MG pauses, his voice pained, "and she had to go away, leave Mystic Falls. Would you go with her?"

Lizzie blinked. She never really thought about it.

The twin girls had spent all their lives in Mystic Falls.

The thought of just packing up and never leaving really crossed her mind. Maybe after college, but still...

"Yes," Lizzie answers without hesitation, "I would go wherever Josie went. I wouldn't even think about it for a second."

His girlfriend's answer does nothing to quell the pit in his stomach.

If anything, he can feel it grow.

Josie was his little sister.

Lizzie was the love of his life.

The Saltzman twins were the closest thing he had to a family.

The thought of either of them getting on that bus like Ethan...

Like his mother.

Leaving him all alone in this world.

It was too horrible to think about.

MG felt Lizzie pulling him in the direction away from the bus stop, and he had one final thought, determined to never return to this place for a bus, for someone, that would never come again:

He can't let Hope destroy Josie like she did Ethan.

\\

Hope shook her head in amazement as she and Cleo walked down the hallway side by side.

After her initial embarrassment of Cleo's blatant flirting, the two fell back into a comfortable and familiar conversational cadence.

The pair of reunited friends discussed everything they had missed out on since they last saw each other.

Hope had told Cleo practically everything.

Even about her mother whom she reconciled with.

"Simply wonderful." Was the response, Cleo gave. "No one deserves the utmost happiness than you, Hope."

Hope could still feel the flush that had formed when Cleo said those words.

"So why are you even in this class?" Hope questioned. "If you wanted to escape being a prodigy and a simple teenager?"

Cleo looked up, trying to think of the words to express herself.

"Because art is never finished, only abandoned," Cleo poetically answers, "and I will never abandon my art."

Hope hummed, impressed with her friend, "Leonardo da Vinci, I see you still love to quote your favorite artists."

Cleo stops the pair from having a proper conversation once they get to her new locker.

"I confess that advanced arts are throwing me for a bit of a loop," Cleo opens her locker and turns to Hope, looking at her inquisitively. "Mrs. Tigg is proving to be a quite demanding art teacher for all her disorganization."

Hope nodded in agreement, "True, Emma is the nicest teacher I've ever met, but only like ten people actually pass her class each term."

"Oh no, I have been deceived! How am I going to get the credit for this class?" Cleo dramatically groans, feigning catastrophe.

Hope smiled at her antics and held her nose up high, "Well, luckily for you. You have the best artist in Mystic Fall High, hell in the whole state of Virginia as your partner!"

"The best you say?" Cleo challenged. "We will see about that, agapi mou."

Hope was about to retort back wittily when someone behind her interrupts.

Hey babe." Hope is surprised by a familiar voice.

It sounded like her Josie but hardened, with more bite behind her words.

Josie firmly places her hands on Hope's hips, placing her chin on the top of her short auburnette girlfriend's head, "who’s your new friend?"

"Oh! Hi!" Cleo greeted excitedly, believing she was about to make another friend. "My name is Cleo."

Josie really didn't care what Cleo's name was or how friendly and kind she may seem.

Josie had decided she hated the new girl the second she walked down the hall and noticed how Cleo was staring at her girlfriend.

That had been the least subtle eye-undressing she's ever had the misfortune to witness.

And Cleo dared to direct it at her Hope.

"Josie, my name is Josie." the junior teen all but shouts angrily at the Grecian transfer student.

Cleo is taken aback at the force behind Josie's introduction and is quite frankly a little more than terrified.

"Okay...Josie..." Cleo nervously rubs the nape of her head, "It's nice to meet you."

Hope raised an eyebrow while still comfortably in Josie's arms. "Um, Jo Bear?" she asked.

"Hmm" Josie innocently draws out, never breaking eye contact with Cleo.

There is a part of Hope's brain that tries to be reasonable.

This was Josie.

No way she was doing all this to assert her dominance or blatantly claim Hope.

Josie didn't just wrap her arms around her waist because of jealousy - Josiejust wanted to hug her girlfriend like always. And Josie didn't just interrupt their conversation because she was jealous - she was simply trying to spend time with Hope.

Yea. That was it.

Hope involuntarily shivered as she felt Josie lean down and place a purposeful kiss on her forehead.

"Oh." Was all Cleo could say as Josie kissed Hope, never breaking away from her, as if telling Cleo with her brown eyes looking like daggers to "back off, now."

Hope tries to recover quickly, still very much surprised with how affected she was by Josie's sudden display of possessiveness.

The auburn-haired girl doesn't want to admit it out loud, but it was.... doing things to her.

"Josie is my girlfriend." Hope stutters out.

Said girlfriend tightened her hold on Hope, drawing her closer to the brunette's body defensively.

"Yea, so I would really appreciate it, Cleo," Josie spits out her name with venom, "if you would stop referring to my girlfriend as your love."

Cleo panicked in embarrassment that the brown-haired girl had not only heard her conversation with Hope, her girlfriend but was well versed in Greek and knew exactly what "agapi mou" meant in her language.

"I am so sorry!" Cleo apologized, her amazing day suddenly taking a turn for the worst. "I didn't know Hope was spoken for."

"Well, now you know," Josie states, "she is."

Cleo decides to make a break for it right then and there.

Lest her embarrassment doesn't kill her, she is pretty sure the snarling, taller, and clearly ticked-off teenage girl will do it.

"I totally understand. I can see with a gorgeous girlfriend like Hope you would be – what do the American kids say – jelly?"

Cleo jokes but quickly feels pathetic at her useless attempts to diffuse the situation.

Josie frowns for a second, feeling sorry for Cleo.

The new student didn't seem to be a bad person. Still, she fucked up when she messed with HER person.

Cleo turns on her heels, leaving the couple alone as she curses herself, feeling stupid.

"I'll talk to you more about our project later, Hope."

Hope quickly detangles herself from Josie's body and turns around to question her girlfriend's shocking behavior.

Her girl doesn't give her a chance to speak as Josie reaches down, fisting her hands on Hope's blouse, bringing her into Josie by force.

"Jos-" Hope squeaks, but the brunette doesn't wait for her to formulate whatever question Hope was about to ask.

In a swift move, Josie cupped her petite face and smashed their lips together in a kiss.

It took Hope exactly four seconds to understand what was happening and five seconds to close her eyes and kiss Josie back.

Soft but deliberate assertive hands find purchase on the small of Hope's back as auburnette grabs Josie's neck to keep her as close as possible.

Lips heatedly move against one another, and Hope can't help but muse how perfectly she and Josie fit together in these little moments.

A few seconds later, they break for air, their lips smacking loudly as they both take a deep breath.

It's worth mentioning that this was only the second time they indulged in PDA, and now the whole campus was staring at them, some with smiles on their faces, some with their phones out - oh no -,

Hope looked into Josie's eyes, her heart pounding out of her chest, her eyes dilated with the whirl of emotions and lust the kiss brought.

Josie had a goofy smile playing on her lips, and squeezed Hope's waist before leaning down and pecking her lips.

"What was that about?" Hope asked, her dazzled azure eyes searching Josie's beautiful face for an answer. "I thought you were mad at me."

Bending her head down, Josie nuzzled her face on the hollow of Hope's neck, her voice small and her anger subsided. "You're with me."

"I know," Hope answered, still confused about the sudden behavior change. "But why are you so.... possessive now?"

"I'm trying something new," Josie awkwardly responds, "I don't want people to think they have a shot with you anymore."

Josie prays Hope doesn't get mad at her for giving in to her territorial instincts and possessive rage instead of breathing them away this time.

Hope smirked at that, finally understanding what was going on.

She pulled Josie closer bringing her mouth in on a pierced ear, "I like you. She's just a friend."

"I don't trust her." She repeated, squeezing Hope's torso tighter.

"So, you're jealous?" Hope teased, earning a light shove from her girlfriend, "You have nothing to be jealous of."

Josie sighed, "If you say so, I'm just glad Cleo knows you are my girlfriend."

Hope smiled, leaning back to look her in the eyes.

"So, I guess we can stop talking about all this stupid breaking up business now?"

Josie looked back at Hope, staring directly into yearning azure eyes, a smile forming on her lips as well.

She whispered in softly, "Yes, Hopey."

"Hopey?" Hope giggled. "That's new."

Josie blushes, "It's another new thing I'm trying out. You said to come up with something else!"

"Oh. I guess" Hope thought about it and laughed, her laughter echoing joyously in the hallway.

Hope buried her face into Josie's shoulder.

She kind of liked a jealous Jo Bear.

"If I make you jealous, will you kiss me again?" Hope questions teasingly.

Josie groans, "I'll kiss you regardless, but I prefer if you didn't."

\\

Hope paused her story telling to look up at the clock on the wall.

"Damn," Hope curses, "That part of the story only took up like thirty minutes."

The Mikaelson heiress turned her attention back to her therapist.

Cami was staring at her with an unreadable expression, and it was starting to make Hope feel uncomfortable.

"Well, Hope," Cami starts pulling the top of the pen cap she had been chewing on out of her mouth, "It seemed like you and Josie have a very... complicated relationship."

Hope snorts out, "Had a relationship. We're not together anymore."

"Okay, Hope," Cami said aloud to the auburnette's image of despairing before her, "Why don't you tell me about the relationship you USE to have with Josie? It seems important."

"Well, Josie is the kindest, most understanding, sincere person I ever met...." Hope stops her story, feeling the pain of her ex-girlfriend's loss hitting her like a speeding train.

Cami sighed heavily.

She hates this part about being a therapist.

Bringing out the pain and hurt that someone is feeling.

But Cami knows all too well thst  it's part of the healing process.

"Focus on the good, Hope," Cami guides, "Just block out the bad right now and tell me about Josie. The good parts."

Hope smiles feeling that the train passes her as she loses herself in Josette Saltzman.

"She bites her fingertips when she gets nervous. She bites her lower lips when she doesn't know what to say. Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese because it's what her birth mom, Jo, used to make her and Lizzie before she died..."

Cami nodded her head encouragingly, "go on..."

"When she would sleep at night, Josie would let out these little sighs that made me think she was dreaming of me. She was always cold, and because I'm always warm, it was the perfect fit when I held her in my arms at night. She loves playing in the rain, and little blue irises are her favorite...."

Cami noted the way the auburnette's eyes had begun to well up and the amount of love in which Hope spoke about Josie.

"She sounds like an amazing girl," Cami supplied with her usual attentive insight.

"Yes," Hope said readily, surprised at how emotional she'd become. "When I was ten, I wanted to marry her. My dad thought I was crazy."

Cami felt touched by Hope's devotion.

"So.... shall we continue with your story then?" Cami said, grinning, already looking forward to what else Hope had to say.

Hope wiped the tears that had fallen off her face and inhaled deeply.

"Sure, might as well. We still have two hours."


Sam was frustrated. She was supposed to have gone with her girlfriends on the week long trip to the beach, but her parents wouldn't let her out of the house. She was eighteen and just out of high school. This was the second weekend of the summer break and the beginning of the week she was supposed to be at the beach, but she was stuck at home. She had told her parents that she was going to look for a job for the summer, but didn't and was caught by her mom at the mall. As punishment she was not allowed to go with her friends and still had to pay her parents back for the trip.

Sam was short for Samantha, but she hated being called the longer name. She was an inch shy of six feet and one hundred thirty pounds. She had an hourglass figure with measurements of 32-24-34. She knew how to use her body to her advantage, but not to get a job, mainly because she never had an interview. She had, depending on the maker of the bra, large B-cup or small C-cup tits.

To add to her frustrations, her parents went on their own vacation for the week. They had left her chores list for the week. She knew they were all to be done before they got back and decided to just push through all of them and hope for a little stay-cation while they were gone.

The list said that she was supposed to clean her room, wash both cars, clean the kitchen, and many other things. Most of the stuff on the list was easy and indoors. She knew the lists needed doing before she went to bed on Friday after seeing her parents off.

She woke up Saturday and instead of griping and not doing her chores, she got right into them without changing out of her PJs. She normally wore a loose top and pants to sleep in when her parents were home, but when she had the house to herself or she stayed with friends she wore a tight tank top and just her panties. Now she was in a pink top and blue boy shorts.

Surprisingly, by eleven a.m. most of the chores on the list were done; only one major chore was left, washing the cars. Actually the chore list stated that she was to wash the Pathfinder. She decided that if she had to wash the SUV, she would also wash her Honda sedan. Both were parked in the driveway, with hers wearing a parking boot. The boot was placed on her car by her dad, a city police officer who had bought an older boot from the city when they were getting new ones. He had had Sam pull into the spot where the Pathfinder normally sat and placed the boot with her watching. The SUV was parked where the Honda Element, the vehicle Sam's parents took for their vacation, normally sat.

She changed her clothes to go outside. She pulled another tank top on, this one a light green. Her panties hit the floor and a pair of tight fitting black spandex shorts that ended three inches below her butt were pulled on. She then pulled her shoulder length strawberry-blonde hair up into a ponytail. Her track shoes on her feet were the last things she put on before heading out the back sliding door.

In the back she blanched at the heat, but didn't stop. Fewer people would be out, meaning a little fun while washing. She smiled at the thought. The washing bucket and other implements were in the shed off to the side of the house next to the pool machine shed. She welcomed the brief respite in the shade, but the temperature was only a few degrees cooler than in the sun.

With the stuff in hand she went out front. The cars sat in the driveway and looked hot. There was a hose attached to the spigot on near the garage door, which she grabbed and used to fill the bucket.

She started with her sedan, since it was closer to the neighbor's house. While spaying the car down, she got splash back and she enjoyed it, especially the cool water hitting her chest. After the car was all wet she got into washing the car. While she was washing the main body of the car, she never squatted to soak the sponge. Only when the body was covered in suds did she spray the car down again. By this time she was sweating and to help alleviate some of the heat, she pulled her top up to the bottom of her tits. She also splashed some water over her head. The water cascaded down her body and because of the difference in temperature, when the water hit her chest her nipples hardened and became very visible to anyone who was looking. She smiled at the thought, but noticed there was no one around and the smile faded some.

Next she did the wheels and bumpers, this time squatting and at one time accidentally splashed her knees. The water ran down her legs to her crotch. This time she shuddered. She stopped herself from touching her crotch. "Got to finish washing," she said to herself.

She sprayed the sedan down again and quickly dried it off.

Now it was noon and there was no one on the street. The temperature was over a hundred degrees and she was getting really hot. She spayed the SUV and wetted her hair again. That wasn't enough for her this time. That was partly because she was really hot from the sun, but she was also getting horny.

Her best friend, Emma, showed her how 'hot' it was to show off. Sam wasn't into stripping off in front of people, but she did get naked some times when there was a chance of getting caught. Being horny the way she was made her glance up and down the street to see if anyone was around. Seeing the street was empty and most of the homes were empty, it being the beginning of summer vacation and all, she pulled her top off and laid it on the hood of the SUV. She then sprayed the top until the entire thing was soaked. She was reveling in the feel of standing in front of her house topless. Her nipples were even harder and she was starting to make a wet spot in her short, but that was hidden from sight because of the water that had leaked there earlier.

Once the top was soaked she stopped spraying and pulled the top on. The top held a huge amount of water and dripped from the time she pulled it up. It soaked her body and she shuddered. The top stuck to her like a second skin and she pulled it down just past her nipples. She was feeling naughty and didn't care as much anymore. The water ran down her body, making it glisten in the sun. It started to soak the top of her shorts.

Felling cooler, yet hotter, she started washing the SUV in earnest. She used the same technique as on the sedan, spraying the entire vehicle (and trying to minimize splash back onto the sedan), washing the body, spraying off the suds, and then stopped again.

She was feeling too hot again, this time more for the sexual thrill than the heat of the day, but she did notice that the shirt was quite dry after the thirty minutes it took her to wash SUV. She was amazed at how dry her shirt got in that time. She pulled the top off again and pushed the sexual envelope by pushing her shorts down and off. She set both on the hood of the SUV and sprayed them down. All the while looking around to make sure no one saw her. Her free hand was gently gliding around on her bared body. Her nipples were at the hardest that she had ever had them and her pussy under a neatly trimmed bush was practically gushing.

She pulled her soaking wet clothes on again just before a car passed the house. She quickly finished the washing and then the drying of the SUV with a quick swipe of the towel over the sedan to get the splash from the SUV. When she was done, she dumped the bucket out onto the driveway and sprayed it out. All the items she had taken from the back were placed near the front door to dry and she stood in front of the SUV. She couldn't believe how quickly her clothes were drying, as they were almost dry again. That wasn't true, but it was the justification she gave herself.

She figured she was allowed a little down time, since there was only one more thing to do on her list. She was going to use the pool in the backyard. As a little play for herself, she had kicked her shoes off next to the door to dry with the other stuff. In front of the SUV she stripped herself bare again and smiled to herself. She pinched both nipples, causing her to moan happily.

As one last tease for herself, she squatted down and stuck a finger in her pussy. This caused her to moan again and she was close to sitting down right there to masturbate. That's when she heard a car coming down road. She pulled her finger out with a slight sucking sound and some disappointment. She ran around the corner just in time, leaving her clothes on the ground in front of the SUV.

In the back yard, she undid her ponytail, jumped into the pool and swam the length of it. In the shallow end she climbed the stairs and sat on a lounge chair. In short order one of her hands found its way to her crotch and the other to her tits.

This was a first for her. She had never skinny dipped in her own pool or tanned in the nude before. Both were making her hornier, and building on the feeling she had given herself in front of the house, than just the teases she had done in front. She had skinny dipped else where with Emma, but she had never thought she would do something like this at home. She smiled as her fingers played with her wet lips and hard clit. Her moaning became more pronounced as she worked herself toward a great orgasm. Her stomach was convulsing in time with her hands as she was getting closer to cumming.

As she crested her peak into orgasm, her body froze then she had tiny shakes, like many tiny earthquakes coming from the epicenter of her clit and pussy. The only thing that didn't stop was her mouth. At the crest she said quietly, "Fuckmefuckmefuckme..." Every time she cums she says exactly the same thing for the duration of the orgasm.

This time when she came down from her high she started masturbating again. The feeling of being outside in the middle of the day on the weekend was just something she couldn't get over and needed to release her happiness. She masturbated to two more amazing orgasms before stopping. She could barely walk when she went inside the house to get a drink and suntan lotion. After applying the lotion she laid back outside by the pool and truly enjoyed the sun on all her skin, especially on the tiny white triangles on her tits, over her pussy and on her ass. She vowed to herself that those lines would be almost gone by the time her parents cam home.