"I only want sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with me." ~ Fall Out Boy

[inner_human]

Date: Thursday, August 17, 2000
Time: Mid-afternoon
Place: Pansy's flat
Characters Involved: Perry Derrick, Pansy Parkinson, invitation only
Rating: R for language and suggestive material

Comments

[inner_human]

Perry's eyes were closed, he was drifting off, coherent enough to grin and return a soft kiss but not coherent enough to react to Pansy's question right away. But eventually, he did open one eye.

His flesh convulsed subtly whenever Pansy touched one of his scars that first night; his body always knew, even when he wasn't paying attention. This time it was better, he was more accustomed to the feeling of her, more secure.

But his nerve impulses did misfire then, as her finger traced the raised line of tissue. He stared at her through one eye, sleepy but slowly waking up. Oh, right... this was one of those reasons he'd denied Pansy for so long. He'd forgot all about the scars this time.

Of course she wouldn't... she was Pansy.

It took him a moment; not because he was that groggy... but because he'd never really discussed his scars before. As much as he hated for them to be seen, to present them as a topic for conversation was even worse. So, why was Perry considering it now?

Because... he was supposed to be working on honesty. On not pushing Pansy away.

And he was too sleepy to come up with a good diversion. He opened his other eye and grinned crookedly, one of those actions used to cover up what he was really feeling. As if his life was really that funny.

"I fought in the war. That's what happened."

[freakedwithjet]

That got Pansy's attention and she was certainly awake now. She sat up fully, pushing her hair back of her face, uncaring of the sheets, all thought of a lazy afternoon's quiet gone. How did she not know this?

"You fought in the war?" she asked, trying very hard to keep the note of incredulity from her voice. Perry had always seemed like the epitome of Slytherin values - and Slytherins took care of number one. There was no positives for the individual in taking part in warfare - hence Pansy's neutrality. Now she couldn't believe Perry had allied himself, had signed himself away. Was she the only one who had thought only of herself?

She was staring, she realised, and she swung her gaze around to the big window over looking the quays. Which side, she wondered. The fact that he lived with Snape and Lupin suggested that he'd been backing Potter, but it could be for show, or a last-minute team switch. Stranger things had happened.

She looked back at him and frowned. Let him explain, if he would, in his own way. "Why?"

[inner_human]

...So apparently they were done snuggling.

Now Perry was wondering why he told her in the first place. But you could never tell how people were going to react until it was too late, you just had to throw your chips in and hope the gamble was worth it. At the moment, Perry wasn't sure it was. He'd forgotten the company he was in... the company of a Slytherin. Of course she'd have questions.

Perhaps that tone of voice wasn't surprise... but abhorrence.

Pansy was sitting up, separated from him. Perry was wide awake now and he sat up as well, because craning his head to look at her was becoming difficult. Besides, he needed to be on her level for this. At least, once he figured out what to tell her. How was he going to explain this to her--and why did he feel like a traitor? It wasn't as if Pansy had declared her loyalty to the Death Eaters--which was incentive to stop while he still could. Perhaps this was a can of worms he didn't want to open.

In the end sitting up was pointless, because he looked away, drawing up one knee to rest an arm upon it.

"Because, it was the Dark Lord's Death Eaters who took my life from me." Long before he earned the scar. Not even that could turn his voice as bitter, and his eyes as cold as they were now. Just talking about it, hearing the reminder in his own ears brought it all back. The selfish, conniving lot of them, who terrorized his father--the man they called "friend" even as they bullied him to become a Death Eater--and then attempted to kill his only son when he refused.

Then there was the worst of them; the man who failed to rescue that son from a neverending nightmare.

He shot a glance to Pansy. "I wanted to return the favor."

Perry watched her and that cold bitterness spread all over, freezing the last of his drowsiness. His gaze was a challenge for her to reveal her sympathies and the derision that she would no doubt now feel; it was also a plea to prove him wrong.

[freakedwithjet]

Ah. Revenge. There was a compulsion Pansy could certainly understand. Its roots were in the selfishness that she allowed to dictate her own life - the importance of proving to oneself that whoever dared to wrong you would rue the day that they had done so.

Her sudden reaction to Perry's revelation had clearly been the wrong one. Whereas just a few moments earlier they couldn't have been closer - bare limbs wound around each other in idle drowsiness - now they were sat up on either side of the bed with no contact at all. Even Perry's eyes slid away from her, looking out of the window as he withdrew into himself so that he might as well not even be in the room at all.

It had always been difficult when Perry was like this, and if Pansy had been fooling herself that sex meant that these times when they were so distanced from each other would be any less awkward, this day was proving her wrong.

There was no need for her to ask him what he meant when he spoke of the loss of his life, and Pansy was not the do-gooder type to tell Perry how stupid it had been to risk his life but that at least he was still alive and had survived. Mostly that was because Pansy didn't believe it. It had been right for Perry to fight for what he had once been - he hadn't been fighting under Potter's stupid banner; he had been fighting for himself and there was no better cause.

At least now, she didn't have to use only words to attempt to drag his attention back to her. She brushed one hand softly through his hair, allowing her fingers to trail down his jaw line and pull his chin around so that he couldn't help but look at her properly. She was staring straight into his eyes as she said fiercely, "I hope you killed as many of the bastards as possible." Her voice lowered as she added, "I wish I could say I'd done the same."

[inner_human]

At least she hadn't kept him waiting. That would have been more agonizing than the confession already was. This was out of his comfort zone; discussing his life, his past. Details that he so selfishly clung to... and now here was some bird beside him demanding that he share. Even more uncomfortable was the realization that he wanted to. Or perhaps that was the wrong way to put it, because did he really want to let someone else into his life? Did he want her to know all these things? Not really.

He simply felt helpless to stop her. It seemed like, with Pansy, everything was a battle... and he was constantly the loser.

But, at least she didn't keep him waiting for a response. Her fingers in his hair caused a pleasant tingle down his spine, and as she pulled his gaze back to her, Perry was surprised to see such intensity in her eyes. The tingle spread through his skin and gathered hot and suffocating within his ribs, and for once, it felt like the two of them were on the same side.

Oh, she could just be saying all this; that thought did pop into his mind of course, because Perry was naturally distrusting and just slightly paranoid. He was doubting her, even as his mouth broke into a broad grin. He leaned in and kissed her soundly.

No, you don't, he thought, but he wouldn't comment on it. The war was a place that he never wanted to revisit, even in his mind. But she didn't need to know.

He punctuated the kiss with a brief peck on the lips, and after a pause continued to her cheek, and her forehead as if one wasn't enough. The silly grin was still there. "I got a fair few on your behalf. How's that?"

It could be considered cunning on Pansy's part, how she always seemed to know just what to say... just what was needed to get under Perry's skin. To make him want her. But he was happy to suppress his anxiety and allow himself to feel understood.

[freakedwithjet]

Fair play to Perry for suspecting Pansy's motives; it was generally a good idea. Pansy hadn't sneaked around Slytherin, the house of cunning, for a year without learning manipulation tactics. She could read expressions; she watched for little habits and tells for information on an individual's real feelings; she used that knowledge to her own advantage. For Pansy though, the most surprising thing about Perry was that, although she could do all of that stuff to understand him and alter her behaviours to suit him, she didn't have to.

It was surprising and scary, that her automatic, vehement reaction to Perry's disclosure could bring him so suddenly back to her side. That she could understand him so well while still not really understanding him at all.

Then there was the question of whether that comprehension worked both ways? And if it did, then why did they have those rows that they seemed to be getting so good at? Perhaps it was just today - this one perfect afternoon in which everything was going to be storybook wonderful. How else to explain Perry's zany grin as he kissed her, and again, and again, all over her face, as though he couldn't get enough? How to explain Pansy's expression that mirrored his and the happy little contented sigh as she nestled back against his chest?

How else to explain why Pansy didn't explain that she didn't want other people to be fighting on her behalf? She hadn't left out of cowardice, but out of a belief that the fight had bog-all to do with her. Hindsight was a treacherous tool. She wanted to be able to say that she had killed some of them to Perry... for Perry? But were she to go back in time, would she have done things differently?

She hid her face against his neck as though hiding from those questions and pressed a kiss to his pulse point there before saying, "It'll have to do. And in return I didn't stay in for a year, sit on the sofa and get really fat." She smiled then, a wide open smile unlike her usual grins, and added, "Fair exchange?"

[inner_human]

And, it helped that Perry was so into sex. And girls. And this. Even if he always found himself worrying that one of them wasn't being sincere, worrying about how far they could take it before things went horribly wrong.

Perfect afternoon, indeed, for the most imperfect couple in the world.

They entertained each other, he'd told her once. They had fun together. It was still very much true; even the fighting he could look back on with a grin. Even her most irritating habits, her dogmatic confrontational tendencies seemed amusing in hindsight (and that realization was kind of scary). He'd go home and think about how impossible this was later; right now he was in bed with a pretty and completely naked girl who was resting against him and kissing his neck and being positively charming.

Perry's grin widened and he chuckled. "Fair exchange." He broke away briefly to recline into his previous position, and then tugged Pansy's arm to pull her down with him. He'd never been into the cuddly stuff, really, but he didn't mind lying together, relaxing.

And chatting... as long as it wasn't about him. In this new position, he glimpsed the dark etchings on Pansy's left forearm.

"And while we're on the subject of fair exchanges..?" He brushed two fingers against her left arm gently, grinning. "I never pictured you as the type to go for tattoos."

[freakedwithjet]

Grasping Perry's fingers lightly with her own right hand, she guided them along the dark lines of the tattoo, whispering each letter as they finished ghost-writing it.

"It's my name in Old English," she explained. "I got it done in my seventh year - I suppose it was kind of a response to everyone who was pushing me to put something else there."

It was really rather crude, now she came to think about it, and no doubt in future years the unsubtlety of it would pain her. She remembered vivdly the Christmas holidays when she had sneaked down to the entrance of Knockturn Alley to get it done. She had bit her lip hard enough to leave a bruise as the tattooist began to work, only to realise that enough gold bought you a painkilling spell.

The colour had faded now; the once vivid black was now a faded blueish- grey on her skin and Pansy had almost ceased to notice it. Like a mole or a freckle, it was just a part of her arm but examining it now, she felt a ressurgence of that old pride every glance at it had brought her in the war years.

Letting her arm fall, she retained Perry's hand, playing idly with his fingers. "Why wouldn't you think I was a tattoo girl?" she asked jokily. "A dangerous ex-con like me? It doesn't hurt at all, either." She paused, and then added mischievously, "I might get another one actually. Something tasteful... like a big red rose on my upper arm."

[inner_human]

From above Pansy, Perry raised a brow, watching the progress of their fingers along the letters. He immediately understood her meaning, and her was something he hadn't thought about much... not since he'd heard the stories of Draco's defection. Seventh year for her would have been... what, three years ago? Back when the conflict was really beginning to heat up. He wondered what it must have been like in Hogwarts, in the Slytherin house during those times. He'd left back when they all only joked about what would happen if Voldemort came back, what dark spells their fathers and mothers showed them during summer breaks, what they'd do to Muggles and Muggleborns if they got the chance. Nothing serious... nothing they truly planned to act on. How much of that changed in the years after he left?

At least she hadn't picked the Dark Mark. How many of his old friends did?

Perry grinned and pressed a kiss into her hair. "Obviously not because you're so delicate," he chided.

"Oh yes, a rose would suit you. All full of thorns. So seemingly sweet and innocent until you get too close." Smirk.

[freakedwithjet]

The kiss made her smile. It had that easy affection that was so rare with Perry and really, this was such a wonderful afternoon it seemed as though nothing could spoil it.

"If I was delicate," she murmured, her hand caressing his shoulder, "I'd never have made it this far. Though tatoos have nothing to do with it - like I said, they don't even hurt." She smirked then and really, that second comment was like a red rag to a bull; "And as for sweet and innocent..."

She swung one leg over his hip, sliding her foot slowly down his far leg as she did so and smiling as she dipped her head down to kiss him, her hair forming a curtain around them both, the wispy ends catching on her lips though she didn't care.

"Sweet and innocent would be dull."

[inner_human]

Sure they don't, he thought, smirking. He didn't have any tattoos and he never intended to get one, but somehow he doubted etching designs into a person's skin could be totally painless.

He blinked as she suddenly shifted herself over him... but didn't exactly object. In fact, he was grinning quite deviously before her lips met his. One hand slid through her hair, near the jawline, and the other found the small of her back, pressing her closer.

After all, they had all afternoon.