[oneshot] on your own
Title: on your own
Characters: fred, george, angelina, alicia, katie, lee, oliver
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: post-war george-centric fic. 1,340 words.
Absurdly, the first thing George latches onto when the funeral is over and he's had a chance to escape the pitying glances and the walking on tenterhooks and the crushing, cloying embrace of his mother's bosom-the first thing he lets himself remember, after he's flipped the shop's sign to a resounding CLOSED and locked himself in the flat upstairs, is their flight across Scotland during Potterwatch's extended run and Fred's determined insistence that they stop to nick ice cream from every bit of civilization they stumbled across. Ice cream, of all things, and Kingsley would look as scandalized as someone like Kingsley could look and Lee would be especially enthusiastic about it and Remus would get this half-exasperated, half-fond twinkle in his eyes, and for a moment, as pistachio or rhubarb sorbet or mango gelato melted over the tip of his tongue, the aches in George's muscles would ease up a bit; a brief and welcome respite, a return to normalcy in the midst of a raging war.
Fred had always been good at that, at the undercurrent of hominess when they were on the run-but no, George doesn't want to think beyond that, to what Fred had been good at and what he'd been bad at and what he'd always been, so he turns over on his narrow mattress with the comforter that'd always been too short and sleeps. And sleeps. And sleeps.
And wakes up blearily to drink some of the souring juice in the fridge-hey ho, the last time he'd drunk out of this carton Fred had still been-and dives back underneath the covers. The bed, the flat-it all smells of them, really, like ink and explosions and tart, tangy bits of candy they'd been experimenting on before they'd been forced to flee. There is no real food in the fridge, but he still knows better than to stick the orange taffy stuck to the floor in his mouth. He's not sure he'd've been able to bite into it, anyway, given how ossified it seems to be.
He's vaguely aware that he will have to get up and get out some time-he'd been the hardier twin, the one that could last without food for longer, and it fucking hurts to think about them in the past tense now, but it can't be helped. By the end of the third week of living on nothing but stale biscuits and old juice, he pulls himself to the bathroom, peers at the hollow, sunken edges of his cheeks, and decides that Fred's death should be marketed as some sort of weight-loss program-and then he feels like a right git, because Fred's death shouldn't be used for anything. Nothing at all, except for maybe making him feel miserably like a fish out of water.
Through the foggy haze of hunger gnawing at his stomach and his feverish sleep hangover, a voice like God's booms, "You selfish sodding wanker." George thinks he might be dreaming, or maybe just hallucinating. "Open this door!"
"God," George croaks, "you sure sound like Alicia."
"Oh, he sounds really sick," comes another girl's voice.
"Katie, is that you?" he groans, dragging himself back to the bed and collapsing spread-eagle on it. A moment later there's a tremendous crash from the entrance, and then quick footsteps, and then-
"Thought you were going to hole yourself up in here forever, did you?" Alicia hisses into his good ear. "Think again."
George lets them tug him up and sling his arms over their shoulders. "What are we doing? Where are we going? Is this a kidnapping? It is, isn't it? That's illegal, you know. Anyway, you've got the wrong man-it's probably my brother you're after. You know the one-we're identical."
"Silencio," Alicia snaps, jabbing at him with her wand. "We are not kidnapping you. We're taking you to the Leaky Cauldron and you're going to get nice and drunk so you can take your mind off things."
My mind is off, he wants to say, and it's been off for quite some time now. But the charm's still in place, so he just settles for giving her a Very Tired Look.
It only serves to make Katie more alarmed. She presses a hand against his forehead. "He's terribly hot." George tries to send her a lecherous grin at the double entendre but probably ends up grimacing more than anything.
"I'll lift the charm if you promise to stop babbling," Alicia says. He nods, legs like jelly, and she taps him, mutters Finite. They're almost at the Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley's lights twinkling like they always do at twilight, and George suddenly thinks that it is stupid and wrong that the rest of the world spins on while he is just standing still. Alone.
The pub is packed, and George is dizzy as fuck, but they manage to find Angelina in one of the booths at the back. She looks rather worse for wear, but holding up in a very Angelina way that is reminiscent of exam period and her yearlong stint as quidditch captain and the one time Fred accidentally burned off a huge chunk of her hair in a prank gone wrong. He laughs and sinks down on the chair next to her, Alicia already calling for a round of Firewhiskey.
"Starting off strong, are we?" George says, eyeing his glass with trepidation. "I'm not sure I should drink on such a shriveled, empty stomach."
"I never thought I'd see the day one of the Weasley twins," Angelina hiccups over the phrase but trundles on admirably, "refused alcohol."
"Oh, you're on, Johnson," he says, waving at Tom to bring some chips over.
It is actually frightening how easy it is for him to slip back into bickering with Alicia and making fun of Katie and pulling faces at Angelina, and how it isn't a façade-as much as he would like it to be, and as much as he would like to wallow in his own misery in memory of Fred, which he makes the mistake of saying out loud. A mistake, because Alicia promptly bursts into tears on his shoulder between the third and fourth round of alcohol when he does, ranting on about how just because they'd lost Fred didn't mean they were allowed to lose him, too, and think about us, idiot. Alicia leaves a stain on his shirt and Angelina looks at him, eyes dark like thick treacle, as though she knows-and of course she knows, of course they all know, because Fred was his but he'd also been theirs.
Sometime after his seventh mug of whiskey, Katie slips out and comes back bearing gifts of great familiarity-namely Lee and Oliver, the latter whose slaps on the back almost threaten to shunt him onto the floor in a puddle of goo.
"I am weak and feeble," he slurs as they slide in to make room for the newcomers. "And in a perpetual state of mourning."
"And yet you joke," Lee points out drily, sipping on his Firewhiskey.
"I suppose it's how old Fred would've wanted to be celebrated out, eh?" Oliver says-and it's actually a little amazing, that in George's most dire time of need Oliver can think of something so simple and so perfect that he hadn't even thought about it, and deliver it in that earnest, easy way of his. It occurs to George that throughout all this he hasn't really thought of Fred-certainly, he's thought of him, but that is a different thing entirely, and he's really been horribly remiss. Fred wouldn't have wanted him to wallow. If anything, he reasons, watching Alicia throw soggy chips into Oliver's hair that Katie gingerly fishes out and Lee's ever-present determination to win a firm but amused Angelina over, and later, half-delirious with exhaustion and alcohol consumption, a sunrise over the quaint rooftops of Diagon Alley-if anything, perhaps he hasn't been quite fair, and perhaps he is not quite so alone. By himself, now, yes, but never alone.
fin
A/N: extremely gratuitous, but it was very cathartic to write :')
Characters: fred, george, angelina, alicia, katie, lee, oliver
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: post-war george-centric fic. 1,340 words.
Absurdly, the first thing George latches onto when the funeral is over and he's had a chance to escape the pitying glances and the walking on tenterhooks and the crushing, cloying embrace of his mother's bosom-the first thing he lets himself remember, after he's flipped the shop's sign to a resounding CLOSED and locked himself in the flat upstairs, is their flight across Scotland during Potterwatch's extended run and Fred's determined insistence that they stop to nick ice cream from every bit of civilization they stumbled across. Ice cream, of all things, and Kingsley would look as scandalized as someone like Kingsley could look and Lee would be especially enthusiastic about it and Remus would get this half-exasperated, half-fond twinkle in his eyes, and for a moment, as pistachio or rhubarb sorbet or mango gelato melted over the tip of his tongue, the aches in George's muscles would ease up a bit; a brief and welcome respite, a return to normalcy in the midst of a raging war.
Fred had always been good at that, at the undercurrent of hominess when they were on the run-but no, George doesn't want to think beyond that, to what Fred had been good at and what he'd been bad at and what he'd always been, so he turns over on his narrow mattress with the comforter that'd always been too short and sleeps. And sleeps. And sleeps.
And wakes up blearily to drink some of the souring juice in the fridge-hey ho, the last time he'd drunk out of this carton Fred had still been-and dives back underneath the covers. The bed, the flat-it all smells of them, really, like ink and explosions and tart, tangy bits of candy they'd been experimenting on before they'd been forced to flee. There is no real food in the fridge, but he still knows better than to stick the orange taffy stuck to the floor in his mouth. He's not sure he'd've been able to bite into it, anyway, given how ossified it seems to be.
He's vaguely aware that he will have to get up and get out some time-he'd been the hardier twin, the one that could last without food for longer, and it fucking hurts to think about them in the past tense now, but it can't be helped. By the end of the third week of living on nothing but stale biscuits and old juice, he pulls himself to the bathroom, peers at the hollow, sunken edges of his cheeks, and decides that Fred's death should be marketed as some sort of weight-loss program-and then he feels like a right git, because Fred's death shouldn't be used for anything. Nothing at all, except for maybe making him feel miserably like a fish out of water.
Through the foggy haze of hunger gnawing at his stomach and his feverish sleep hangover, a voice like God's booms, "You selfish sodding wanker." George thinks he might be dreaming, or maybe just hallucinating. "Open this door!"
"God," George croaks, "you sure sound like Alicia."
"Oh, he sounds really sick," comes another girl's voice.
"Katie, is that you?" he groans, dragging himself back to the bed and collapsing spread-eagle on it. A moment later there's a tremendous crash from the entrance, and then quick footsteps, and then-
"Thought you were going to hole yourself up in here forever, did you?" Alicia hisses into his good ear. "Think again."
George lets them tug him up and sling his arms over their shoulders. "What are we doing? Where are we going? Is this a kidnapping? It is, isn't it? That's illegal, you know. Anyway, you've got the wrong man-it's probably my brother you're after. You know the one-we're identical."
"Silencio," Alicia snaps, jabbing at him with her wand. "We are not kidnapping you. We're taking you to the Leaky Cauldron and you're going to get nice and drunk so you can take your mind off things."
My mind is off, he wants to say, and it's been off for quite some time now. But the charm's still in place, so he just settles for giving her a Very Tired Look.
It only serves to make Katie more alarmed. She presses a hand against his forehead. "He's terribly hot." George tries to send her a lecherous grin at the double entendre but probably ends up grimacing more than anything.
"I'll lift the charm if you promise to stop babbling," Alicia says. He nods, legs like jelly, and she taps him, mutters Finite. They're almost at the Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley's lights twinkling like they always do at twilight, and George suddenly thinks that it is stupid and wrong that the rest of the world spins on while he is just standing still. Alone.
The pub is packed, and George is dizzy as fuck, but they manage to find Angelina in one of the booths at the back. She looks rather worse for wear, but holding up in a very Angelina way that is reminiscent of exam period and her yearlong stint as quidditch captain and the one time Fred accidentally burned off a huge chunk of her hair in a prank gone wrong. He laughs and sinks down on the chair next to her, Alicia already calling for a round of Firewhiskey.
"Starting off strong, are we?" George says, eyeing his glass with trepidation. "I'm not sure I should drink on such a shriveled, empty stomach."
"I never thought I'd see the day one of the Weasley twins," Angelina hiccups over the phrase but trundles on admirably, "refused alcohol."
"Oh, you're on, Johnson," he says, waving at Tom to bring some chips over.
It is actually frightening how easy it is for him to slip back into bickering with Alicia and making fun of Katie and pulling faces at Angelina, and how it isn't a façade-as much as he would like it to be, and as much as he would like to wallow in his own misery in memory of Fred, which he makes the mistake of saying out loud. A mistake, because Alicia promptly bursts into tears on his shoulder between the third and fourth round of alcohol when he does, ranting on about how just because they'd lost Fred didn't mean they were allowed to lose him, too, and think about us, idiot. Alicia leaves a stain on his shirt and Angelina looks at him, eyes dark like thick treacle, as though she knows-and of course she knows, of course they all know, because Fred was his but he'd also been theirs.
Sometime after his seventh mug of whiskey, Katie slips out and comes back bearing gifts of great familiarity-namely Lee and Oliver, the latter whose slaps on the back almost threaten to shunt him onto the floor in a puddle of goo.
"I am weak and feeble," he slurs as they slide in to make room for the newcomers. "And in a perpetual state of mourning."
"And yet you joke," Lee points out drily, sipping on his Firewhiskey.
"I suppose it's how old Fred would've wanted to be celebrated out, eh?" Oliver says-and it's actually a little amazing, that in George's most dire time of need Oliver can think of something so simple and so perfect that he hadn't even thought about it, and deliver it in that earnest, easy way of his. It occurs to George that throughout all this he hasn't really thought of Fred-certainly, he's thought of him, but that is a different thing entirely, and he's really been horribly remiss. Fred wouldn't have wanted him to wallow. If anything, he reasons, watching Alicia throw soggy chips into Oliver's hair that Katie gingerly fishes out and Lee's ever-present determination to win a firm but amused Angelina over, and later, half-delirious with exhaustion and alcohol consumption, a sunrise over the quaint rooftops of Diagon Alley-if anything, perhaps he hasn't been quite fair, and perhaps he is not quite so alone. By himself, now, yes, but never alone.
fin
A/N: extremely gratuitous, but it was very cathartic to write :')