Truth (R) (Part 2/2)
Title: Truth: Part2
Author: ravenclawamber
Prompt: 083. Rose and Scorpius go camping. She's been several times. He's never been.
Summary: Rose, Scorpius and their best friends, Albus Potter and Ignatius Longbottom, go camping for the week. Albus and Iggy half-heartedly try to play matchmaker, but don't realize that the ship has already sailed.
Rating: R-ish
Warnings: Language, mention of sex and sexual sitations.
Word Count: 11,435 total
A/N: I want to thank my awesome bets from Project Team Beta, McGonagall’s Bola and EvilPumpkin, for not stringing me up by my toes for my crimes against the comma and for all their hard work and helpful feedback. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Rose and Scorpius hiked through the trees for over an hour and then had lunch on a small patch of grass near the summit overlooking the lake. As Rose bent to tuck their leftovers in her rucksack, Scorpius, while not enjoying the hike, decided that the view couldn’t be beaten.
She was wearing a pair of tiny denim cut-offs again with a vintage Weird Sisters that was worn so thin in places that he could see her skin through it. He concentrated mostly on her trainers throughout the most of the hike after she’d turned and caught him staring at her arse. Twice.
When they sat down for lunch and Rose stripped off her t-shirt off to reveal a tiny black and white polka-dotted bikini, Scorpius nearly swallowed his tongue. Now, he stared at the lake and wondered vaguely if she was trying to drive him stark raving mad.
“Ready?” she asked as she put her shirt back on over her head. He wasn’t sure if he was glad she’d put it back on or not. On the one hand, he might be able to string together a coherent thought, but on the other, he really enjoyed looking at her. It was a toss-up.
She was freckled from head to toe, and during the summer, the freckles almost connected across the apples of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She hated them, he knew, but he adored every single one of them. When they had been together, he’d joked that he would someday search for their children’s names in her freckles. She had laughed and poked him in the ribs.
Nodding, he followed her into the nearby copse of trees, trying desperately not to look at her bum again.
It all felt so long ago. Had it only been eight months?
They didn’t talk much on the hike, concentrating mostly on their footing on the steep grades and narrow rutted paths. When they made it back into camp, Iggy was lighting a fire and Albus was crudely chopping carrots and potatoes for their meal.
“Lamb stew,” she told Scorpius as he watched her go into the tent with her bag.
“Her eyes are up here,” Iggy said smartly, gesturing to his head, “by her nose.”
“You’re one to talk,” Scorpius grumbled. “At least I wasn’t comparing her tits to my mum’s last night-in front of her cousin.”
“I can hear you,” Albus said from the camp table they had set up.
Scorpius looked around guiltily and shrugged, hoping Albus didn’t think too much about it. Albus grinned at him, and there was something in that grin that made Scorpius wary. It wasn’t until much later when they were passing a bottle of Ogden’s finest Firewhiskey around the campfire, that he realized why.
“Truth or Dare,” Albus said out of the blue.
“Dare,” Scorpius replied cautiously, handing the whiskey to Rose who was sitting next to him.
“I dare you to kiss Rose.”
He shrugged nonchalantly and leaned across the arm of the plush camp chair he’d conjured earlier. His heart was beating wildly in his chest as he looked at her lips and then into her eyes. She looked up at him and smiled lightly. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the cheek and pulled back. He licked his lips and thought about kissing her again, for real, but decided against it. Her breath came out in a whoosh, but Scorpius couldn’t figure out for the life of him whether it was relief or annoyance.
“Not fair,” Albus said, glaring.
“Totally fair.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly at his Al. “You failed to specify where I had to kiss Rose.”
“Bugger,” Albus said under his breath.
“Iggy, Truth or Dare?”
“Dare, of course,” he replied with his palms open as if to say, bring it on!
“I dare you to climb that tree, without magic, in your shorts,” Scorpius said, grinning evilly at a tall pine tree.
“Ouch,” Rose said.
They watched as Iggy scrambled from branch to branch, cursing into the dark when he lost his footing once. When he’d landed back on the ground, Scorpius watched amusedly as he picked pine needles out of his mohawk until Rose went to help. He felt his face molding into a scowl and turned back toward the fire to sulk.
Rose glanced back and saw Scorpius scowling at her fiercely. Slowly, she backed away from Iggy. “I think we got it all,” she mumbled and did a quick Scourgify charm to get the sap off of his hands.
She went and sat down next to Scorpius where she realized that he wasn’t scowling at her, but at Iggy. She frowned until the other boys had brought their Firewhiskey back around and flopped into the chair.
“Truth or Dare, Rosie?” Iggy said.
Rose took a deep breath and at some length, said, “Dare, please.”
Iggy looked downright gleeful, which worried Rose immensely. “I’ve got just the thing.”
Rose glanced at Scorpius and realized that chances were, after he had evaded, that she would likely have to kiss him. She sighed. It was going to be difficult, she thought, to keep it light and simple when she really wanted to stick her tongue down his throat and go in for the kill, to feel his hands on her, to have her hands on him. She swallowed roughly and looked back at Iggy. “Yeah?”
“I dare you, Rose, to give me a strip tease, down to your knickers,” he said, grinning impishly.
“Come again?”
“I want you to give me a lap dance. Fuel some adolescent fantasies for me.”
She glanced at Scorpius whose mouth was pressed into a thin line and then back at her cousin Albus who was staring back at her. “Don’t you think that is kind of weird with my cousin sitting there?”
“Not especially,” Iggy said.
“Okay,” she said, standing up. “Rules first. No touching,” Iggy started to say something, but Rose cut him off. “And when my bra comes off, Albus covers his eyes.”
“Rosie,” Albus whined, and she shot him a look. “Come on, it’d be fueling a few of my fantasies too-of course I’d be pretending you were someone else.”
“Al!” Rose said scandalized and then turned back to Iggy. “No touching,” she reiterated, “And give me that!” she grabbed the Ogden’s from Iggy’s hands, took a big swig and handed it back. He grinned wickedly, and Rose felt her pulse kick up a bit. She could practically feel Scorpius’ eyes on the back of her.
Albus summoned the wireless from inside the tent and charmed it to play some sort of Irish flute music with a heavy beat. Rose raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged, grinning.
She closed her eyes and started swaying awkwardly to the beat, and Albus turned the music up so that all she could hear were the beat, the flutes and the crackling of the fire. She lifted her hair up over her head and ground her hips side to side like she’d seen the dancers do at the club James and Fred had taken her to on her seventeenth birthday. At the time it had been ridiculous, but now she mused that it might have been an educational experience.
Her fingers went to the hem of her shirt, and she heard Iggy whistle at her, so she turned her back to him as she lifted the hem slowly up her stomach. When she opened her eyes, they found Scorpius, staring, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She met his gaze and licked her lips seductively, totally forgetting that Iggy and Albus were there for a moment.
“Turn around,” Iggy called loudly. Giving Scorpius one last glance, she turned to face Iggy as she brought the tee off over her head and tossed it to him. She’d changed out of her bikini earlier and was wearing a bright yellow cotton bra, practical for camping. She briefly thanked Merlin, or whoever was listening, that she’d put on her plain boy-short knickers instead of the ones with HARPY written across the bum in glitter.
Iggy was laughing, staring at her chest, and Albus was just grinning at her, eyes slightly glazed with alcohol. She hoped he really was imagining she was someone else. She laughed out loud and started to dance a little more as her hand went to the fly of her jeans. It seemed that the Firewhiskey was doing the trick. She snagged the bottle and took another deep drink, feeling it burn all the way down.
Rose kicked off her sandals and started to shimmy her jeans off to the beat. She glanced back at Scorpius again, and the heat in his gaze nearly knocked the breath right out of her. She wanted to go to him and kiss him, let him touch her the way that she’d made Iggy promise not to, but she couldn’t. Not now.
“Rose!” Iggy called, laughing, and she passed the bottle back to him.
When she was free of her jeans, she continued to dance and spin around the fire. Iggy was suddenly out of his chair too, dancing around her, a little less steady on his feet, but keeping his distance as promised. Scorpius was digging his knuckles into the arms of his chair, and Rose stared straight into his eyes as she reached behind her and undid the clasp on her bra. His breath was coming in short gasps, and she realized that hers was too.
Iggy stopped dancing and watched as she slowly revealed her pale breasts in the firelight. Rose licked her lips, and Scorpius groaned. He was transfixed by her. Part of him wanted to cover her body so that Iggy couldn’t look at her, but the teenage bloke in him knew that if he didn’t look his fill, he may never get another chance. She looked like a pagan goddess dancing in the light of the fire, her arms up, red hair flowing wildly around her. She was perfect. He wondered vaguely if it would be bad form to sling her over his shoulder like a caveman and carry her back to his lair to ravish her.
When the song ended, the spell was broken. Rose looked around wildly and scrambled to cover herself. He assumed that it had to be totally awkward knowing that your three best mates-one who was your cousin-were sporting tent trousers while they ogled your breasts.
She turned to him then, eyes pleading. Scorpius stood without thought and stripped his cashmere jumper off over his head. She stepped toward him and held her arms up so that he could drop it down over her head. It was an incredibly intimate gesture that wasn’t lost on him.
“Spoilsport,” Iggy murmured, still staring at Rose.
Scorpius shot him a death glare. He felt like ripping Iggy’s eyes out and using them for fish bait. Rose was his, and Iggy could go sod himself. Ignoring his aroused state, he threw a protective arm around Rose’s shoulder and pulled her close to his side to shield her while Albus grabbed her trousers out of the dirt and tossed them to Scorpius.
“You okay?” he said, handing them to her.
Rose nodded but kept her eyes cast downward as she slid them up over her hips.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ogled-“
“It’s not your fault, Scorp,” she said, smiling at him like she didn’t mind his ogling too much. “I’m just embarrassed. Really embarrassed.”
Scorpius felt his heart sink and turned to yell at Iggy, but Rose caught his arm and turned him back to face her. “It isn’t his fault either I took the dare.”
The hell it wasn’t! Scorpius thought angrily. Tomorrow, when they were all sober and when Rose wasn’t looking at him so vulnerably that he thought she might break, he was going to give Iggy a piece of his mind.
The game went on, but when it finally came back around to Rose, she quickly chose Truth. Scorpius could tell she was still a bit shaken.
“Is it true,” Albus said, “that you had sex with the Head Boy in the Astronomy Tower the night before NEWTs?”
Scorpius found he was holding his breath. There had been several rumors about Rose since they had gone their separate ways, and he wasn’t sure what to believe, since she’d had quite a few casual dates to Hogsmeade and various functions in the castle.
Rose wrinkled her nose at him. “Are you serious?”
“I heard him bragging to his mates about it on the train ride home.”
“What a berk,” Rose said, sipping her Butterbeer. “I absolutely didn’t shag James Goldstein in the Astronomy Tower… or anywhere else. He carried my books for me. Once.”
Rose asked Iggy the weirdest place he’d ever shagged-it was at the bottom of the Black Lake with Gillyweed he’d nicked from his dad’s private greenhouse.
“Rose,” Iggy said, “Did you really shag that ginger bloke that works for your uncle George in the store room at the joke shop?”
She wrinkled her brow confusedly. “What red-headed bloke? Louis?”
“Ewwww,” Albus said.
“I don’t know his name. Short, kind of fit, works inventory?”
“Andrew Paulson? Oh god, no!” she said vehemently. “He tried to snog me, and I turned him down flat. Where in Merlin’s name did you hear that?”
“Louis said he’d heard it from the blond, what’s-her-name, who works there on the weekends.”
“Jesus,” Rose said under her breath and then turned to Scorpius. “Where’s the most interesting place you’ve ever shagged a bird?” She raised her eyebrow and smirked.
“Broom cupboard,” he mumbled, looking into the fire.
“Truth or dare?” she asked him, and he thought about it for a minute.
“Dare,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. Hopefully she’d be kind to him.
“I dare you to run and jump into the lake. Starkers.”
He shrugged and got to his feet. He started to jog toward the lake, and she shook her head. “I said run and jump in the lake starkers. Strip, Malfoy.”
Iggy guffawed, and Albus grinned and shrugged at him. “She’s got you, mate.”
She watched him until he’d stripped to his shorts and then she turned away, blushing.
“You’re not even going to watch?” Iggy asked incredulously as Scorpius finished stripping down.
“I trust you to tell me that he’s done it,” she said primly.
Scorpius laughed, delighted with her reaction, as he took off, running for the lake. He could hear Rose laughing behind him as he ran as fast as he could in nothing but his trainers. The water was refreshing when he hit it, and his shoes made squishing noises as he jogged back up the slope to the campsite causing everyone to snicker. Rose had turned back around before he got close. He dug his wand out of his pocket and cast a Drying Spell before getting dressed.
When they were all sitting around the campfire again, he turned to Rose, “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she said.
He didn’t know what made him ask, but curiosity and jealousy had been burning his insides ever since he’d started hearing the rumors in February. “Is it true that you slept with Franklin Abbot and Seth Wilkins after the Quidditch Final?”
“Good Merlin!” Rose said, practically flying out of her chair. “Do you guys really think that I am that much of a slag? D’ya think that I’ll bonk anything with two legs and a prick?”
“No!” Albus and Scorpius both said, jumping to their feet. Iggy, who was three sheets to the wind, stayed seated, but shook his head in denial.
“I’ve only had sex with one bloke, one time! It was awful, and I didn’t fancy repeating the experience anytime soon,” she huffed, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Scorpius felt his pulse picking up and watched the way the fire played off her reddening cheeks. He wanted to go to her and apologize for ever thinking that she would have slept with the people spreading rumors about her. He knew she had more sense than that, but jealousy did awful things to a person.
“He wasn’t doin’ it right then,” Iggy slurred with a snigger.
“He was doing quite well, actually,” Rose said, blushing furiously. “But when Uncle Neville and the Head Boy burst in on you in flagrante delicto, it kind of kills the mood.”
“Oh Merlin, that was the one rumor I heard that was actually true?”
“And then,” Rose continued, meeting Scorpius’ eyes directly, “the bloke tells them to go away and come back in an hour, like we can just keep at it after they’ve seen what we are doing…”
“He didn’t!” Albus said, sounding like an old biddy.
“He did,” she said again. “And then he didn’t talk to me for almost two weeks.”
Scorpius had heard enough. He paced and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation.
Finally, he practically yelled, “What the bloody hell did you want me to do, Rose? Jump up and give the Professor and Goldstein the show of a lifetime?”
“Holy shit!” Albus practically yelled, spinning to look at Scorpius. “That is what you were fighting about?”
“I wanted you to talk to me,” she said exasperatedly, ignoring Albus’ outburst completely.
“You know that thing where you flap your lips and sound comes out?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me!” the blond yelled, fisting his hair and pulling.
“After detentions were handed out, you practically flew out of the office without sparing me a second’s notice!”
“I was mortified, you arsehole!” Rose shouted back, coming to stand in front of him. “I’d just been caught by one of my mum and dad’s best mates, having it away with my best mate in a damn broom cupboard!”
Albus turned back to Rose and started to say something, but Iggy stopped him with a nudge from the Firewhiskey bottle. Albus took it from him, downed a generous swig and started to open his mouth again, but Iggy wordlessly pulled him by the collar of his shirt toward the tent.
While Rose stood perfectly still, hands on her hips, Scorpius paced like a caged lion. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” he yelled, kicking his camp chair and glaring at it. His heart was racing, and his mind was woefully blank of anything he could say to make this right.
He stopped and turned his back to her. His shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I’m such a fuck-up, Rose,” he said, rubbing the palms of his hands against his eyes to make the stinging stop. He wanted her now, just as much as he had then. Probably, he wanted her more. Scorpius wanted the right to hold her hand and kiss her lips again, but this time without all the sneaking around.
After Rose, he hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else. He’d gone to Hogsmeade with a sixth-year girl in the spring, but it had just been one date. They hadn’t even held hands.
She hadn’t been Rose Weasley.
Slowly, he turned back to face her. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “I just-I’m just sorry.”
Rose was blinking rapidly when he finally met her shiny eyes. “I’m sorry too, Scorp,” she said and hesitantly took a step toward him. “I was horrified and worried that Uncle Neville was going to tell my parents, and I thought that if you still wanted to be with me, you would talk to me…”
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “I thought you would talk to me about it,” he said. “You always talk to me.”
“We are both morons,” Rose stated matter-of-factly. He closed the gap between them, and they were standing chest to chest. “I’m sorry, Scorpius,” she whispered again.
“I forgive you,” he said and wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug. “Merlin’s bollocks, I’ve missed holding you like this.”
“Mmmf,” Rose said, and Scorpius laughed into her hair. She wrapped her arms around his middle and held on tightly. His heart felt like it was going to burst right out of his chest. He could feel his hands shaking as he finally relaxed his hold on her and pulled back to look into her eyes. She grinned up at him just as a tear streaked its way down her cheek.
“You’re crying,” Scorpius said and kissed the droplet away.
“I’m happy… and sad and confused,” Rose said. “If we’d have just talked to each other…”
“We’re talking now,” he replied, looking into her eyes, willing her to see what he felt. What he’d been feeling all along-the longing and adoration.
“I’m going to Norway,” she said, looking determined.
His stomach churned uncomfortably. He was so damn nervous. “You’ll come home.”
“I know,” she sighed and rubbed her hand up his back, making him shudder.
He loved the way she felt in his arms, soft and warm wearing his cashmere jumper with nothing under it. A fierce wave of possessiveness swelled in his chest. Mine, he thought.
Before he could think any more about it, he closed the space between them and kissed her. He was gentle at first, but when Rose gasped and opened her mouth to him, he deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers and pressing her body even more tightly against his. She bit down on his lip and he groaned.
“Oh my,” she said when she came up for air. Scorpius moved his mouth to her jaw and kissed down the slender column of her throat. “Oh my…” Rose purred again. He laughed, and she tugged on his hair again. He was on fire, burning for her. His hands trembled as they stroked her hair, her face, her neck, then to the sides of her breasts.
Rose took a breath and stepped back so she could look him in the eyes. “I want to do this right,” she said fiercely. “If you and I decide to try again…”
What he wanted to say was, Mine! And pull her back to him, but what he said was, “If?”
Rose smiled almost serenely. “No more sneaking around.”
“No, no more sneaking. No more lies,” he agreed readily.
Rose sucked in a breath, and he knew she was going to say something important and from the way her jaw was set, he knew she thought that he wasn’t going to like it. “I know we’ve already passed the point of no return, but Scorp, I want to take it slow this time. I want this thing-us-to last. We jumped head-first into a physical relationship, and it was a disaster…”
He sighed. Leave it to Rose, his passionate and fiery Rose, to be so utterly logical and plainspoken about sex. “I understand,” he said. He could wait. He could kiss her and hold her and talk to her and wait forever, if he had to. “But it wasn’t a disaster,” he added almost to himself.
She worried her lip between her teeth and looked straight into his eyes, capturing him. “I want this to be perfectly clear. I still want you, Scorpius. I’ve wanted you more every day, but with our lives being so busy and everything changing right now, I think it is a good idea for us to wait to bring sex back into our relationship. It’ll be something special that we can look forward to in the future.”
His eyes darted to her lips and back up to meet her gaze directly. He kissed her hard, and she let him. His chest swelled and his blood all headed south as she kneaded the muscles in his back and pressed into him. He nipped her lip, and she ran her tongue along the seam of his mouth. He obligingly tangled his tongue with hers and lost himself to the kiss. Lost himself to Rose.
When she pulled back from him, her eyes were soft and unfocused. “The not-so-distant future, I think,” she said. Scorpius growled and pulled her back into his arms as he sank onto her abandoned camp chair. She curled into his chest and sighed.
Rose fell asleep as the sun came up in the east. Hours before, she had deftly transfigured the chair into a recliner and sprawled across his chest. They talked quietly and stole kisses often. Scorpius ran his fingers through her hair and sighed in contentment as he let his eyes fall shut. He did not know where this thing with Rose was going, but he knew with certainty that wherever it went, he would follow.
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Author: ravenclawamber
Prompt: 083. Rose and Scorpius go camping. She's been several times. He's never been.
Summary: Rose, Scorpius and their best friends, Albus Potter and Ignatius Longbottom, go camping for the week. Albus and Iggy half-heartedly try to play matchmaker, but don't realize that the ship has already sailed.
Rating: R-ish
Warnings: Language, mention of sex and sexual sitations.
Word Count: 11,435 total
A/N: I want to thank my awesome bets from Project Team Beta, McGonagall’s Bola and EvilPumpkin, for not stringing me up by my toes for my crimes against the comma and for all their hard work and helpful feedback. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Rose and Scorpius hiked through the trees for over an hour and then had lunch on a small patch of grass near the summit overlooking the lake. As Rose bent to tuck their leftovers in her rucksack, Scorpius, while not enjoying the hike, decided that the view couldn’t be beaten.
She was wearing a pair of tiny denim cut-offs again with a vintage Weird Sisters that was worn so thin in places that he could see her skin through it. He concentrated mostly on her trainers throughout the most of the hike after she’d turned and caught him staring at her arse. Twice.
When they sat down for lunch and Rose stripped off her t-shirt off to reveal a tiny black and white polka-dotted bikini, Scorpius nearly swallowed his tongue. Now, he stared at the lake and wondered vaguely if she was trying to drive him stark raving mad.
“Ready?” she asked as she put her shirt back on over her head. He wasn’t sure if he was glad she’d put it back on or not. On the one hand, he might be able to string together a coherent thought, but on the other, he really enjoyed looking at her. It was a toss-up.
She was freckled from head to toe, and during the summer, the freckles almost connected across the apples of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She hated them, he knew, but he adored every single one of them. When they had been together, he’d joked that he would someday search for their children’s names in her freckles. She had laughed and poked him in the ribs.
Nodding, he followed her into the nearby copse of trees, trying desperately not to look at her bum again.
It all felt so long ago. Had it only been eight months?
They didn’t talk much on the hike, concentrating mostly on their footing on the steep grades and narrow rutted paths. When they made it back into camp, Iggy was lighting a fire and Albus was crudely chopping carrots and potatoes for their meal.
“Lamb stew,” she told Scorpius as he watched her go into the tent with her bag.
“Her eyes are up here,” Iggy said smartly, gesturing to his head, “by her nose.”
“You’re one to talk,” Scorpius grumbled. “At least I wasn’t comparing her tits to my mum’s last night-in front of her cousin.”
“I can hear you,” Albus said from the camp table they had set up.
Scorpius looked around guiltily and shrugged, hoping Albus didn’t think too much about it. Albus grinned at him, and there was something in that grin that made Scorpius wary. It wasn’t until much later when they were passing a bottle of Ogden’s finest Firewhiskey around the campfire, that he realized why.
“Truth or Dare,” Albus said out of the blue.
“Dare,” Scorpius replied cautiously, handing the whiskey to Rose who was sitting next to him.
“I dare you to kiss Rose.”
He shrugged nonchalantly and leaned across the arm of the plush camp chair he’d conjured earlier. His heart was beating wildly in his chest as he looked at her lips and then into her eyes. She looked up at him and smiled lightly. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the cheek and pulled back. He licked his lips and thought about kissing her again, for real, but decided against it. Her breath came out in a whoosh, but Scorpius couldn’t figure out for the life of him whether it was relief or annoyance.
“Not fair,” Albus said, glaring.
“Totally fair.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly at his Al. “You failed to specify where I had to kiss Rose.”
“Bugger,” Albus said under his breath.
“Iggy, Truth or Dare?”
“Dare, of course,” he replied with his palms open as if to say, bring it on!
“I dare you to climb that tree, without magic, in your shorts,” Scorpius said, grinning evilly at a tall pine tree.
“Ouch,” Rose said.
They watched as Iggy scrambled from branch to branch, cursing into the dark when he lost his footing once. When he’d landed back on the ground, Scorpius watched amusedly as he picked pine needles out of his mohawk until Rose went to help. He felt his face molding into a scowl and turned back toward the fire to sulk.
Rose glanced back and saw Scorpius scowling at her fiercely. Slowly, she backed away from Iggy. “I think we got it all,” she mumbled and did a quick Scourgify charm to get the sap off of his hands.
She went and sat down next to Scorpius where she realized that he wasn’t scowling at her, but at Iggy. She frowned until the other boys had brought their Firewhiskey back around and flopped into the chair.
“Truth or Dare, Rosie?” Iggy said.
Rose took a deep breath and at some length, said, “Dare, please.”
Iggy looked downright gleeful, which worried Rose immensely. “I’ve got just the thing.”
Rose glanced at Scorpius and realized that chances were, after he had evaded, that she would likely have to kiss him. She sighed. It was going to be difficult, she thought, to keep it light and simple when she really wanted to stick her tongue down his throat and go in for the kill, to feel his hands on her, to have her hands on him. She swallowed roughly and looked back at Iggy. “Yeah?”
“I dare you, Rose, to give me a strip tease, down to your knickers,” he said, grinning impishly.
“Come again?”
“I want you to give me a lap dance. Fuel some adolescent fantasies for me.”
She glanced at Scorpius whose mouth was pressed into a thin line and then back at her cousin Albus who was staring back at her. “Don’t you think that is kind of weird with my cousin sitting there?”
“Not especially,” Iggy said.
“Okay,” she said, standing up. “Rules first. No touching,” Iggy started to say something, but Rose cut him off. “And when my bra comes off, Albus covers his eyes.”
“Rosie,” Albus whined, and she shot him a look. “Come on, it’d be fueling a few of my fantasies too-of course I’d be pretending you were someone else.”
“Al!” Rose said scandalized and then turned back to Iggy. “No touching,” she reiterated, “And give me that!” she grabbed the Ogden’s from Iggy’s hands, took a big swig and handed it back. He grinned wickedly, and Rose felt her pulse kick up a bit. She could practically feel Scorpius’ eyes on the back of her.
Albus summoned the wireless from inside the tent and charmed it to play some sort of Irish flute music with a heavy beat. Rose raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged, grinning.
She closed her eyes and started swaying awkwardly to the beat, and Albus turned the music up so that all she could hear were the beat, the flutes and the crackling of the fire. She lifted her hair up over her head and ground her hips side to side like she’d seen the dancers do at the club James and Fred had taken her to on her seventeenth birthday. At the time it had been ridiculous, but now she mused that it might have been an educational experience.
Her fingers went to the hem of her shirt, and she heard Iggy whistle at her, so she turned her back to him as she lifted the hem slowly up her stomach. When she opened her eyes, they found Scorpius, staring, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She met his gaze and licked her lips seductively, totally forgetting that Iggy and Albus were there for a moment.
“Turn around,” Iggy called loudly. Giving Scorpius one last glance, she turned to face Iggy as she brought the tee off over her head and tossed it to him. She’d changed out of her bikini earlier and was wearing a bright yellow cotton bra, practical for camping. She briefly thanked Merlin, or whoever was listening, that she’d put on her plain boy-short knickers instead of the ones with HARPY written across the bum in glitter.
Iggy was laughing, staring at her chest, and Albus was just grinning at her, eyes slightly glazed with alcohol. She hoped he really was imagining she was someone else. She laughed out loud and started to dance a little more as her hand went to the fly of her jeans. It seemed that the Firewhiskey was doing the trick. She snagged the bottle and took another deep drink, feeling it burn all the way down.
Rose kicked off her sandals and started to shimmy her jeans off to the beat. She glanced back at Scorpius again, and the heat in his gaze nearly knocked the breath right out of her. She wanted to go to him and kiss him, let him touch her the way that she’d made Iggy promise not to, but she couldn’t. Not now.
“Rose!” Iggy called, laughing, and she passed the bottle back to him.
When she was free of her jeans, she continued to dance and spin around the fire. Iggy was suddenly out of his chair too, dancing around her, a little less steady on his feet, but keeping his distance as promised. Scorpius was digging his knuckles into the arms of his chair, and Rose stared straight into his eyes as she reached behind her and undid the clasp on her bra. His breath was coming in short gasps, and she realized that hers was too.
Iggy stopped dancing and watched as she slowly revealed her pale breasts in the firelight. Rose licked her lips, and Scorpius groaned. He was transfixed by her. Part of him wanted to cover her body so that Iggy couldn’t look at her, but the teenage bloke in him knew that if he didn’t look his fill, he may never get another chance. She looked like a pagan goddess dancing in the light of the fire, her arms up, red hair flowing wildly around her. She was perfect. He wondered vaguely if it would be bad form to sling her over his shoulder like a caveman and carry her back to his lair to ravish her.
When the song ended, the spell was broken. Rose looked around wildly and scrambled to cover herself. He assumed that it had to be totally awkward knowing that your three best mates-one who was your cousin-were sporting tent trousers while they ogled your breasts.
She turned to him then, eyes pleading. Scorpius stood without thought and stripped his cashmere jumper off over his head. She stepped toward him and held her arms up so that he could drop it down over her head. It was an incredibly intimate gesture that wasn’t lost on him.
“Spoilsport,” Iggy murmured, still staring at Rose.
Scorpius shot him a death glare. He felt like ripping Iggy’s eyes out and using them for fish bait. Rose was his, and Iggy could go sod himself. Ignoring his aroused state, he threw a protective arm around Rose’s shoulder and pulled her close to his side to shield her while Albus grabbed her trousers out of the dirt and tossed them to Scorpius.
“You okay?” he said, handing them to her.
Rose nodded but kept her eyes cast downward as she slid them up over her hips.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ogled-“
“It’s not your fault, Scorp,” she said, smiling at him like she didn’t mind his ogling too much. “I’m just embarrassed. Really embarrassed.”
Scorpius felt his heart sink and turned to yell at Iggy, but Rose caught his arm and turned him back to face her. “It isn’t his fault either I took the dare.”
The hell it wasn’t! Scorpius thought angrily. Tomorrow, when they were all sober and when Rose wasn’t looking at him so vulnerably that he thought she might break, he was going to give Iggy a piece of his mind.
The game went on, but when it finally came back around to Rose, she quickly chose Truth. Scorpius could tell she was still a bit shaken.
“Is it true,” Albus said, “that you had sex with the Head Boy in the Astronomy Tower the night before NEWTs?”
Scorpius found he was holding his breath. There had been several rumors about Rose since they had gone their separate ways, and he wasn’t sure what to believe, since she’d had quite a few casual dates to Hogsmeade and various functions in the castle.
Rose wrinkled her nose at him. “Are you serious?”
“I heard him bragging to his mates about it on the train ride home.”
“What a berk,” Rose said, sipping her Butterbeer. “I absolutely didn’t shag James Goldstein in the Astronomy Tower… or anywhere else. He carried my books for me. Once.”
Rose asked Iggy the weirdest place he’d ever shagged-it was at the bottom of the Black Lake with Gillyweed he’d nicked from his dad’s private greenhouse.
“Rose,” Iggy said, “Did you really shag that ginger bloke that works for your uncle George in the store room at the joke shop?”
She wrinkled her brow confusedly. “What red-headed bloke? Louis?”
“Ewwww,” Albus said.
“I don’t know his name. Short, kind of fit, works inventory?”
“Andrew Paulson? Oh god, no!” she said vehemently. “He tried to snog me, and I turned him down flat. Where in Merlin’s name did you hear that?”
“Louis said he’d heard it from the blond, what’s-her-name, who works there on the weekends.”
“Jesus,” Rose said under her breath and then turned to Scorpius. “Where’s the most interesting place you’ve ever shagged a bird?” She raised her eyebrow and smirked.
“Broom cupboard,” he mumbled, looking into the fire.
“Truth or dare?” she asked him, and he thought about it for a minute.
“Dare,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. Hopefully she’d be kind to him.
“I dare you to run and jump into the lake. Starkers.”
He shrugged and got to his feet. He started to jog toward the lake, and she shook her head. “I said run and jump in the lake starkers. Strip, Malfoy.”
Iggy guffawed, and Albus grinned and shrugged at him. “She’s got you, mate.”
She watched him until he’d stripped to his shorts and then she turned away, blushing.
“You’re not even going to watch?” Iggy asked incredulously as Scorpius finished stripping down.
“I trust you to tell me that he’s done it,” she said primly.
Scorpius laughed, delighted with her reaction, as he took off, running for the lake. He could hear Rose laughing behind him as he ran as fast as he could in nothing but his trainers. The water was refreshing when he hit it, and his shoes made squishing noises as he jogged back up the slope to the campsite causing everyone to snicker. Rose had turned back around before he got close. He dug his wand out of his pocket and cast a Drying Spell before getting dressed.
When they were all sitting around the campfire again, he turned to Rose, “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she said.
He didn’t know what made him ask, but curiosity and jealousy had been burning his insides ever since he’d started hearing the rumors in February. “Is it true that you slept with Franklin Abbot and Seth Wilkins after the Quidditch Final?”
“Good Merlin!” Rose said, practically flying out of her chair. “Do you guys really think that I am that much of a slag? D’ya think that I’ll bonk anything with two legs and a prick?”
“No!” Albus and Scorpius both said, jumping to their feet. Iggy, who was three sheets to the wind, stayed seated, but shook his head in denial.
“I’ve only had sex with one bloke, one time! It was awful, and I didn’t fancy repeating the experience anytime soon,” she huffed, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Scorpius felt his pulse picking up and watched the way the fire played off her reddening cheeks. He wanted to go to her and apologize for ever thinking that she would have slept with the people spreading rumors about her. He knew she had more sense than that, but jealousy did awful things to a person.
“He wasn’t doin’ it right then,” Iggy slurred with a snigger.
“He was doing quite well, actually,” Rose said, blushing furiously. “But when Uncle Neville and the Head Boy burst in on you in flagrante delicto, it kind of kills the mood.”
“Oh Merlin, that was the one rumor I heard that was actually true?”
“And then,” Rose continued, meeting Scorpius’ eyes directly, “the bloke tells them to go away and come back in an hour, like we can just keep at it after they’ve seen what we are doing…”
“He didn’t!” Albus said, sounding like an old biddy.
“He did,” she said again. “And then he didn’t talk to me for almost two weeks.”
Scorpius had heard enough. He paced and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation.
Finally, he practically yelled, “What the bloody hell did you want me to do, Rose? Jump up and give the Professor and Goldstein the show of a lifetime?”
“Holy shit!” Albus practically yelled, spinning to look at Scorpius. “That is what you were fighting about?”
“I wanted you to talk to me,” she said exasperatedly, ignoring Albus’ outburst completely.
“You know that thing where you flap your lips and sound comes out?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me!” the blond yelled, fisting his hair and pulling.
“After detentions were handed out, you practically flew out of the office without sparing me a second’s notice!”
“I was mortified, you arsehole!” Rose shouted back, coming to stand in front of him. “I’d just been caught by one of my mum and dad’s best mates, having it away with my best mate in a damn broom cupboard!”
Albus turned back to Rose and started to say something, but Iggy stopped him with a nudge from the Firewhiskey bottle. Albus took it from him, downed a generous swig and started to open his mouth again, but Iggy wordlessly pulled him by the collar of his shirt toward the tent.
While Rose stood perfectly still, hands on her hips, Scorpius paced like a caged lion. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” he yelled, kicking his camp chair and glaring at it. His heart was racing, and his mind was woefully blank of anything he could say to make this right.
He stopped and turned his back to her. His shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I’m such a fuck-up, Rose,” he said, rubbing the palms of his hands against his eyes to make the stinging stop. He wanted her now, just as much as he had then. Probably, he wanted her more. Scorpius wanted the right to hold her hand and kiss her lips again, but this time without all the sneaking around.
After Rose, he hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else. He’d gone to Hogsmeade with a sixth-year girl in the spring, but it had just been one date. They hadn’t even held hands.
She hadn’t been Rose Weasley.
Slowly, he turned back to face her. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “I just-I’m just sorry.”
Rose was blinking rapidly when he finally met her shiny eyes. “I’m sorry too, Scorp,” she said and hesitantly took a step toward him. “I was horrified and worried that Uncle Neville was going to tell my parents, and I thought that if you still wanted to be with me, you would talk to me…”
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “I thought you would talk to me about it,” he said. “You always talk to me.”
“We are both morons,” Rose stated matter-of-factly. He closed the gap between them, and they were standing chest to chest. “I’m sorry, Scorpius,” she whispered again.
“I forgive you,” he said and wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug. “Merlin’s bollocks, I’ve missed holding you like this.”
“Mmmf,” Rose said, and Scorpius laughed into her hair. She wrapped her arms around his middle and held on tightly. His heart felt like it was going to burst right out of his chest. He could feel his hands shaking as he finally relaxed his hold on her and pulled back to look into her eyes. She grinned up at him just as a tear streaked its way down her cheek.
“You’re crying,” Scorpius said and kissed the droplet away.
“I’m happy… and sad and confused,” Rose said. “If we’d have just talked to each other…”
“We’re talking now,” he replied, looking into her eyes, willing her to see what he felt. What he’d been feeling all along-the longing and adoration.
“I’m going to Norway,” she said, looking determined.
His stomach churned uncomfortably. He was so damn nervous. “You’ll come home.”
“I know,” she sighed and rubbed her hand up his back, making him shudder.
He loved the way she felt in his arms, soft and warm wearing his cashmere jumper with nothing under it. A fierce wave of possessiveness swelled in his chest. Mine, he thought.
Before he could think any more about it, he closed the space between them and kissed her. He was gentle at first, but when Rose gasped and opened her mouth to him, he deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers and pressing her body even more tightly against his. She bit down on his lip and he groaned.
“Oh my,” she said when she came up for air. Scorpius moved his mouth to her jaw and kissed down the slender column of her throat. “Oh my…” Rose purred again. He laughed, and she tugged on his hair again. He was on fire, burning for her. His hands trembled as they stroked her hair, her face, her neck, then to the sides of her breasts.
Rose took a breath and stepped back so she could look him in the eyes. “I want to do this right,” she said fiercely. “If you and I decide to try again…”
What he wanted to say was, Mine! And pull her back to him, but what he said was, “If?”
Rose smiled almost serenely. “No more sneaking around.”
“No, no more sneaking. No more lies,” he agreed readily.
Rose sucked in a breath, and he knew she was going to say something important and from the way her jaw was set, he knew she thought that he wasn’t going to like it. “I know we’ve already passed the point of no return, but Scorp, I want to take it slow this time. I want this thing-us-to last. We jumped head-first into a physical relationship, and it was a disaster…”
He sighed. Leave it to Rose, his passionate and fiery Rose, to be so utterly logical and plainspoken about sex. “I understand,” he said. He could wait. He could kiss her and hold her and talk to her and wait forever, if he had to. “But it wasn’t a disaster,” he added almost to himself.
She worried her lip between her teeth and looked straight into his eyes, capturing him. “I want this to be perfectly clear. I still want you, Scorpius. I’ve wanted you more every day, but with our lives being so busy and everything changing right now, I think it is a good idea for us to wait to bring sex back into our relationship. It’ll be something special that we can look forward to in the future.”
His eyes darted to her lips and back up to meet her gaze directly. He kissed her hard, and she let him. His chest swelled and his blood all headed south as she kneaded the muscles in his back and pressed into him. He nipped her lip, and she ran her tongue along the seam of his mouth. He obligingly tangled his tongue with hers and lost himself to the kiss. Lost himself to Rose.
When she pulled back from him, her eyes were soft and unfocused. “The not-so-distant future, I think,” she said. Scorpius growled and pulled her back into his arms as he sank onto her abandoned camp chair. She curled into his chest and sighed.
Rose fell asleep as the sun came up in the east. Hours before, she had deftly transfigured the chair into a recliner and sprawled across his chest. They talked quietly and stole kisses often. Scorpius ran his fingers through her hair and sighed in contentment as he let his eyes fall shut. He did not know where this thing with Rose was going, but he knew with certainty that wherever it went, he would follow.
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