"Falling" Susan/Seamus, 6/13
Title: Falling
Pairing: Susan/Seamus
Prompt: Gone
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,300
Summary: What do you do when the world you've just steadied yourself upon falls out from beneath your feet?
Author's Notes: Set in the DAYDverse, uses the canon of Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness and the sequel novel, Sluagh. Will not make sense without them. Both stories, as well as the rest of the 'verse, can be found here
Link to Prompt Table: On my LJ, here
OOO
“Seamus, if anything happens, you can get me on the Galleon, just use Robbie’s wand. The Macmillans and I should be back by tomorrow, there’s plenty of food in the kitchen, I know you can cook without magic, but Robbie, you’re absolutely forbidden from making anything. Cecily, love, you’re the lady of the house tonight, don’t let the boys make too much mess. Is that everything?” Susan paused, running her hands over her traveling cloak in a rapid flutter as she glanced around the front hall of the farmhouse, her cheeks flushed. “Oh, I’m sure I’ve forgotten - if you ever told me I’d be invited to Draco Malfoy’s wedding, much less that I’d go -“
Seamus caught Duncan’s eye in a look of shared amusement, then sighed, reaching out to take her slender shoulders in both hands, stilling the frantic whirlwind of activity into a startled, wide-eyed stare as he smiled at her. “Hesh, there. Price o’ the fine circles ya travel, ‘tis.”
“They’re not what I consider fine society,” she grimaced, shaking him off to smooth the cloak again where his hands had rumpled it.
“Nah,” he allowed calmly, “but they’re rich, they are, and bendin’ over thrice backwards to be model citizens again, so best ya play nice. Ya know why you’re there.”
“I know, I know.” Susan took a deep breath, pushing back one dark tendril that had escaped from the carefully arranged and elaborate coiled style that had taken her most of the evening as she drew herself up, chin held regally high in determination. “I’m just going to remind myself that making sweet could mean getting Ministry approval for Sally-Anne having properly magical eyes so she can see again and some real research into feminine Lycanthropy.”
“And a dozen other things that old owed favors and nasty secrets can buy that money can’t,” Seamus nodded approvingly, relieved to see that she had pulled atop the jitters at last, then he smiled, tossing her a conspiratorial wink. “Besides, ya can comfort yourself on the most expensive o’ that brat’s champagne ya can swallow.”
“I’m not getting off my guard for one second around him or Astoria. I still remember when she Cruciated me, thank you.”
“Good.” He took a step back, about to say his farewells, then stopped as an idea occurred to him. “But when ya see Malfoy, give him a kiss, will ya?”
Susan frowned, utterly baffled. “A kiss?”
“A proper one. Lay it on him good, then tell him it’s from Finnigan and watch the look on his face.” He felt the smile widen wickedly. “Just trust me.”
The smile was returned, her eyes shining, but the confusion was still there beneath, although he hoped not so much that he wouldn’t have the privilege of hearing Draco’s reaction to the little reminder of his long-ago encounter with Fearless Leader in the Room of Requirement. “Have I ever mentioned that your sanity is not one of the things I always have the deepest faith in?”
He laughed, closing the space between them again to lean forward and place a light, teasing kiss on her cheek. “Have I ever mentioned that there ain’t a thing I don’t believe ya can do if ya put your mind t’it? Magnificent, you’ll be, I’m sure o’ it.”
“If you say so.” The confidence was a little too forced, but he let it go as she shook her head, her brow furrowing as she looked from him to Robbie, the Macmillan’s nephew who still lived with them to help run the farm. Seamus had taken on his fair share of the work in the seasons where extra help wasn’t needed, but he still could not replace someone raised with the land and the shepherding business. “Okay, boys, you be good. Don’t be letting Cecily stay up until all hours. Bedtime’s still at nine, Robbie will Apparate her to school tomorrow morning.”
She ran her hands over herself again before throwing them high with a frustrated little huff. “Oh, what am I forgetting!?”
“Yer handbag, Mum.” Cecily’s hazel eyes were glittering with barely-suppressed giggles as she withdrew the small satin bag from behind her back, holding it out to her mother.
Sighing deeply in relief, Susan bent to take it, kissing Cecily quickly on the forehead. “Thank you, angel.” She stood again, licking her lips as she turned so that both men could see her easily, her fingers going to her throat to release the clasp of the traveling cloak. “Okay, how do I look?”
Cecily’s eyes flew huge, and she clapped her hands excitedly, bouncing up onto the tip of her toes as the thick folds fell to the floor, revealing the gown beneath in all its glory. “Ooooh, Mum, pretty, pretty dress! It sparkles!”
“Beautiful, Susan, too fair bonny,” Robbie agreed, nodding his approval.
“Seamus?” The dark eyes turned to him now, the growing expression of modest flattery fading abruptly to worry. “You…you’re not saying anything.” Her hand went to her neckline, hovering embarrassed over the exposed cleavage there as her cheeks reddened. “Is it too low-cut? You don’t think it makes me look too brazen, do you?”
It did not look brazen at all. No, brazen wasn’t the word at all. Brazen implied something dirty, and oh, but he’d never seen anything farther from dirty in his life.
Beautiful, maybe, but that didn’t come close either. There were no words, really, for how she looked, for how perfectly the silver fabric skimmed the lines of her body, how the neck dipped just deeply enough to intoxicate without inviting anything more than wishes, how it preserved the daintiness of her body while exhibiting every curve, how it made her fair skin shine like porcelain and her hair and eyes contrast as black as the night itself. He had seen Goddesses in the flesh, lusted after and lain with more women than he could count, but this was something entirely different, and he could no more find words for what he saw than for the sudden, shocking, overwhelming something he felt.
His mouth was dry as it worked helplessly over the absent words, desperately forcing even nonsense to come enough to drive that awful crestfallen look from her lovely face. “Fine. ‘Tis fine. It just…I just…ain’t…not…’tis different. Aye…different.”
Somewhere far away, he could hear Duncan’s booming roar of a laugh. “Ye’ve struck Finnigan speechless, Sue. Better thing I don’t ‘spose ye could have asked. Now off, else we’ll be late.”
“Good night, boys.” She kissed Robbie on the cheek, and did it burn the other man’s flesh like it burned his? But she’d done it before, done it a dozen times, or had she put something on them tonight that made his skin tingle and tighten so much at the light brush? “Come here, Cecily, give Mummy a hug. Good night!”
And Cecily was following her to the door, there was a last wave, and she was gone with the Macmillans, the triple cracks of their Apparation striking the spinning, suddenly mental night like slaps that couldn’t snap him out of it.
“Ye all right, Mr. Seamus? Ye look funny.” The little girl was looking up at him in concern, and he wanted to tell her it was all right, that it was fine, but he couldn’t make his mouth work, and Robbie smirked, letting out a knowing chuckle.
“Mr. Seamus has a problem with his trousers, I fancy. Happens tae grown laddies sometimes, something ye’ll be learnin’ of when yer bigger.” He ruffled her hair, earning a filthy glare as he chucked a thumb towards the kitchen door. “Come, now, lets go get some biscuits, and I’m thinking he’ll be having himself a walk in tha cold air, maybe jump in t’Loch a bit.”
Cecily frowned, unwilling to be so easily distracted. “Didn’t he like Mum’s dress?”
“Aye, that he did,” Robbie grinned. “But come now, biscuits….”
She allowed him to take her hand, but she looked back over her shoulder hopefully. “Do ye want some, Mr. Seamus? Mum made them this morning.”
“Later, love.” The smile bent his mouth weakly, then he raised his head to catch Robbie’s eye with a far darker glare. “I think I’ll be takin’ that walk now, but a word with Robbie first, if ya don’t mind.”
At six, Cecily was still naïve about most things in the world, something that Seamus strove to preserve, but she was no longer so young as to be unable to tell when adults had something going on over her head, and he saw the understanding dawn on her round face as she looked between them, and thankfully, she had inherited her mother’s talent for diplomacy. “I’ll start tea.”
“Good girl, ya do that.” Seamus nodded her out of the hall, then he strode forward, bringing himself toe to toe with the other wizard, his voice as hard and razor-edged as any blade. “Robert. John. Campbell.”
Robbie grinned again, apparently unaware of the tone that would have made wiser men run for cover. “Coi, she -“
“One word.” And now the danger did convey, and Robbie’s mouth snapped shut, the fear striking his features so fast and so drastically as to be almost comic. “One word ya say to Cecily, to Duncan, to Fiona, to another livin’ soul - Merlin forbid t’Susan -- and it’ll be the last thing ya do. Do I make meself perfectly clear, Robbie, me lamb?”
Robbie nodded swiftly, eyes wide. “Aye, sir.”
“Good.” Seamus made a small, satisfied noise, then turned to grab his own cloak from the hook by the door, not bothering to look back. “Now, ya promised the girl biscuits, ya did. I’ll be back soon enough.”
The early September air was already chilly and sharp, but it had no effect on the flush in his cheeks or the frantic pounding of his heart, and he struck out into the darkness as if he were being chased, as if he could stride…or jog…or even flat out sprint away from what had happened in the warm, bright haven of what had become his home.
What had happened? His mind was reeling, his senses blurred and swirling against themselves and each other, and it was more disorienting than the strongest drink, the most potent drug or potion, the most profound depths of what until now he had considered the mouth of madness.
It wasn’t as if it was the first time he had noticed she was beautiful, of course. He wasn’t blind, it wasn’t even the first time he had wanted her physically, but he’d never thought anything of that beyond that he was a healthy man out in the middle of nowhere with a lovely woman. It hadn’t even bothered him when dreams had brought her to his bed, but this wasn’t as simple as lust. Oh, he wished it were!
It was Susan herself. In that moment, that single instant, she had been not merely so beautiful it could steal a man’s breath away, but she had been so much more. Vulnerable and wounded, stubborn and strong, mother and businesswoman, a fighter with a healer’s heart, his friend who was still half a mystery, his fellow scarred refugee and his saving grace. She was the delicate English rose that should never have been able to thrive on the harsh Highland moors, but thrive she did, thorn and blossom, and in that broken breath, she had captured everything he had come to….
No. Just no!
He didn’t. He couldn’t. He’d never…he just wasn’t that kind of man. Nothing to do with being a good person or bad, but for all that they had grown to be the closest of friends through their shared ordeals, he couldn’t be more different from Fearless Leader with his wife and his baby twins and his almost sickening domesticity. He was a fighter, a survivor, too hardened and too cynical for anything so floaty or ethereal.
Seamus hadn’t had anything like a direction in mind when he’d bolted from the house, but he was strangely unsurprised to find himself in the little graveyard on the crest of the hill that overlooked the compound, standing and staring helplessly down at the marker that still stood fresh and unweathered among the memories of the generations. Slowly, he sank to his knees, placing his hand flat against the silently carved dates that were separated by only eighteen years as his head sagged forward against warm flesh and cold stone.
He was trembling all over, and it wasn’t from the chill that he didn’t at all feel through the warm cloak, his voice a jagged whisper lost against the eternal cry of the wind. “Is this what it were like for ya, Ernie? Knowin’ her and callin’ her friend and then it just hits ya, and ain’t nothing ya can do no more than if’t were Avada Kedavra? ‘Cause I remember the day ya came t’meetin’, and somethin’d changed about ya, it were in your eyes, and ya were holdin’ her hand and not never same after.”
His fist tightened on the edge of the grave, and he could feel droplets of moisture sliding down his wrist, but whether it was sweat or tears or even somehow blood, he didn’t know or care. “What’s it ‘bout her? Is’t a spell all witches got? Hannah done it to Fearless Leader, I reckon. But oh, Ernie, me darlin’, I’m so proper screwed, for she’s yours, she is, still and forever, and I can’t be riskin’ lettin’ her know and drivin’ away what were already so many ways the dearest thing I’ve ever had in me life. Ya don’t need be no jealous ghostie hauntin’ me ‘round, I promise ya, but if ya got a bit o’ influence on t’other side, I could be usin’ a touch o’ mercy t’make this be a passin’ thing.
Seamus lifted his head now, looking up in what was more plea than prayer to the empty stars overhead, and for a moment, it was as if he could almost feel the strong hand of the youth long gone against his shoulder in what could equally have been sympathy or rebuke, warning or blessing as his voice cracked against the shameful truth of the confession. “Oh, Ernie, me old, dear friend, I’ve gone and done a terrible thing, I have. I think I’ve fallen in love with your wife.”
THE END