sekkritaus | Hogwarts / Wizarding World AU

[ Poe lets out a winded grunt - half honest and half for effect, and is midway through sliding an arm around her back when she kisses him roughly. He can't help it, his lips splitting into a grin half way through the kiss. ]

Yeah, I'm glad to see you too. [ It might sound flippant, but there was an honesty to it, grounding it, and he pressed an extra kiss to her lips just to prove that. ]

You alright?

Why, don’t I look alright? [ She asks back dryly, knowing very well she looks exactly like you might expect a person to look after months scraping by for survival on a dangerous mission. When was the last time she brushed all that wild hair? When was her last change of clothes? Questions better not asked, honestly, because the answers would be depressing as fuck. ] I’m not the one growing feathers.

[ She lingers another moment before pulling back, opening up that space between them again so she can give him a proper once over. ]

Trust you to get fucking jinxed. Can’t I leave you alone for a minute without you catching some dark magic?

You look like shit. [ Fondly and amiably, still grinning, and it seemed a little less than honest as he wet his lips, looking her over. Yeah, not saying that thought aloud. Even if she had just kissed him on the lips. ]

Yeah, well. Could be worse. When I first got hit with it, I was coughing up feathers for like five days. It's almost worn off, now.

[ He let his hand drop to her hip, thumb pressing into the hollow in a companionable and yet far too intimate way. ]

I'm off to the safe house in like thirty minutes. Supposed to lay low a few days. You?

[ It was framed as if he was questioning what she was going to be getting up to, but it was actually an invitation, the note of hope a little too obvious in his voice. He'd missed her just as badly, even if he had to play it like he didn't, and getting to just relax a few days with her sounded like a vision of heaven, right now. ]

Edited 2018-12-28 02:26 (UTC)

Me too.

[ She responds without missing a beat - casual as shit too, like that was the plan all along. Some paper pusher in the Ministry would probably have a mess on their hands come tomorrow, what with two infamous Aurors somehow ending up in the same safe house after not insignificant missions, but like Andy gives a damn. Like anybody could really stop her anyway - or, at the least, would consider it worth the trouble of trying. They could try to keep Poe’s location a secret from her, but in a few days, she’d likely be climbing in through the window all the same. The two of them have been in the office long enough. People generally know better by now that it’s easier to accept the fact that she’s been attached to Poe’s hip since they were children and probably will be until the day this job finally kills her. ]

Just waiting on you, hotshot. [ She reaches out to pluck a feather off of him, and none too gently either. ] If you keep shedding, you’re sleeping on the couch.

Hey, I'm always ready to go, you know me. [ Was that a little bit of innuendo? The grin that cracked his lips, lopsided as his eyes twinkled, probably gave that much away. ] I can file my report from there.

[ He feigned a wince that was closer to a wink when she plucked him. ]

And hey, if you help me get all this off, maybe I won't have to shed everywhere.

[ He turned his head to the thin man in the corner who had been busily trying to look like he was doing anything else. ]

Hey. Linus. Got that port key ready, yet?

[ The man nodded a little hastily stood up, knocking over a few books, before using his wand to make a completely nondescript mug that said '#1 Seeker' on it float over to them, and land next to Poe on the desk. ]

Ride's ready, then. You got anything you need to do here?

[ Andy just rolls her eyes lightly in response, waving a hand in vague thanks at Linus’ general direction. Really, the poor man should be used to their antics by now, but he’ll probably be relieved to have the office back to himself in a moment, bless him. How is it that Andy and Poe always seem to disrupt a space just by existing in it? ]

Nothing I can’t do just as well from there. [ She glances down at the Portkey, raising her eyebrows slightly before offering in a deadpan: ] Real cute. On three?

[ Poe just grinned at her deadpan delivery, then reached out to let his hand over over the mug. ]

Yup. One, two -- [ On three, their fingers touched the mug at the same time, and then Poe felt like his entire body was stretched and rippled impossibly long, the whole world twisting and distorting as badly as he was. It was never a pleasant feeling, but at least a few seconds later he was coughing in the middle of a living room, somewhere far away from the ministry, standing next to Andy, as the mug clattered to the floor.

He took a look around to take in the scenery, which honestly looked like a 90 year old just couldn't let go of the past. He let out a snort of a laugh.]

Well. No one will expect us to be here, at least.

[ For her part, Andy loathes using Portkeys. Why does it always leave her feeling a little queasy, even though she's done it about a million times by now? Ugh. The things she puts herself through for Poe Dameron. ]

It's terrible. [ She announces flatly, drawing her wand to point it at the fireplace. ] Incendio.

[ There. Small comforts. ]

Now can we get you defeathered and clean the hell up? I haven't had hot water in weeks, or an actual bed in fucking longer.

This place probably even has one of those weird old bathtubs with the feet in it. [ He said, grinning at her, absolutely charmed by her annoyance.

He pulled his own wand out, though, muttering as he activated the countless wards that secured the safe house. Nothing would be going in or out until he or Andy deactivated them. Not even by Port Key.

As he did it, he started wandering down the hall to find the bathroom. ]

A bath and then a fucking bed sounds like a brilliant idea.

[ He almost said 'then fucking and a bed' but sometimes he liked to play it a little casual. It was always easier to be flippant about it when they were surrounded by other people. But here, where it was just the two of them, there was a weirdly self conscious streak to it. Not that he thought Andy thought about it - or cared about it. So he shouldn't either. But it did mean he toned down the innuendo a little. ]

[ But they'd been mostly playing it a little casual with one another for the better part of their adult lives and then some. Over the past ten years or so, Andy had gotten better at looking like she didn't care and didn't think about it, but at the same time, she must have cared about it a bit — enough to follow him since they were first years. Somehow, she managed to be always within arm's reach while also keeping arm's length, which had bred an ambiguous intimacy she'd come to strictly define as friendship, even when other people seemed less sure.

Whatever it is between them, she's still here. Now. As ever. A constant, if nothing else. ]

Well, what the fuck are we waiting for then. [ She's already starting to shrug off her heavy, dusty robes as she follows him down the hall. No point in being overly concerned with modesty when it's just to the two of them — it's nothing he hasn't seen before. ] I'll pluck the last few feathers if you help me wash my hair.

[ That's another thing she hasn't had in months: A haircut. And all that long, dark stuff is even more untamed now than it was the last time he saw her. ]

[ Poe just was never that smart, when it came to Andy. She'd been at his side for so long that it didn't occur to him that it might be strange. Of course they were together. That's just how they worked. Whatever his feelings were - and they were definitely platonic, okay, and maybe a little sexual but definitely not romantic - they just didn't matter in the face of reality. The reality was that they were a unit and they'd always be a unit.

There wasn't even any jealousy, when she was seeing or sleeping with someone else. Why would there be? She'd still be by his side anyway. And he'd be by hers.

Nothing and no one was going to change that.

All that aside, though, he couldn't help but linger behind as she shed her robes and kept walking. Sometimes you just had to appreciate art, okay? He shed his own clothes soon after, still tugging out feathers as he walked, with just as little care to his modesty as she had to hers. ]

Deal. [ Easy enough. He loved washing her hair anyway. Especially when it was as wild as it was now, cascading down her spine in angry waves, the length almost enough to brush her--

Fuck, she was too hot, sometimes. He checked himself before his body started getting any funny ideas. Or he tried to, anyway. ]

You're okay though, right? I mean seriously. They wouldn't tell me a damn thing about where you were.

I'm fine. [ She's always fine though, isn't she? Unfazed by their line of work, at least on the surface. She's come back looking worse than this, bloody and tired, but never really offering more than two words about what she's come back from. Maybe she really is that fucking tough. Or maybe she'd just rather not worry him. ] Couple scrapes and bruises. That's all.

[ Finally, at the end of the hall: The bathroom. And there, right in the middle, just as Poe predicted — an old tub with claw feet. Charming. Andy sighs, using her wand to bring some low lights to life in the room before leaving it on the counter. As she leans to turn the water on, she glances over her shoulder for him — as if some small part of her needs the reassurance, after all this time apart. ]

They wouldn't tell me where you were either. Probably figured I'd try to come find you.

[ He's only a few steps behind her, waving his own wand to add a few lights to join hers - the colour just a little more orange, because he couldn't help himself. He looked fit - he'd obviously been busy - and there were plenty of bruises - but otherwise he looked no worse for wear. Well. Other than the shoulder feathers. ]

Why, you gonna tell me that they were wrong? [ He asked, his voice a fond tease. ]

Merlin knows I wanted to come find you. Think I'm gonna demand no solo missions for a little while.

[ He stepped up next to her, but rather than reach out for her as a large part of him wanted to do, he leaned over the bath and tapped his wand against it instead, a thin silvery liquid slipping into the water, causing it to foam and bubble as it filled. ]

Might've been better that you didn't. [ Dryly: ] I'm never sure if you're a help or a fucking distraction.

[ But whatever she says aloud, there is some real comfort it being together again. So many of the routines in her life have been built around having him there — and the hardest part of the past few months wasn't the lack of hot water or a soft place to sleep, but missing that anchor. On her own, she's always had this tendency to become a little unstuck. Restless. Reckless. A bit lost. ]

Besides, there's no guarantee they'll assign us together anyway. [ She tests the water briefly with her hand before climbing in. Fuck, but the warm water is nice. ] Head of the office already thinks we're nearly more trouble than we're worth.

[ But they are worth at lot. Especially for young aurors, the list of accomplishments is long — even if the methods may have been questionable now and then. ]

Hey, I can be both. [ He pointed out helpfully.

He watched her climb in, a weird pang in his chest that he couldn't place, and immediately decided to ignore. Not important. He was just glad to see her. ]

Honestly, I could care less what he thinks. He's a beurocrat, head to toe. He's just here as a stepping stone to being a minister. He completely disregarded my last three reports, kept marking them as "no corroborating evidence". Which, yeah, is a little hard to get when he keeps sending me on solo missions and not sending anyone to check back up.

[ He carefully slid into the bath behind her, sliding a leg on either side of hers and shimmying up closer. Not enough that he was touching her back, but enough that if she leaned back, he would be. He let out a frustrated breath as he reached out and carefully started gathering her hair. ]

Sorry. They keep telling me to stay in my own lane and I keep saying I would if they stopped ignoring what was right damn in front of them.

[ It would be easy to close that space between them, small as it is. She could just lean back and let herself have more than just the comfort of the warm water. He's right there. But she leans forward instead, as if to make room for him — or to make it easier to collect all that wild hair, which seems to fill up more of the tub than either of their bodies do. ]

Like they give a damn what either of us has to say. We're not being sent on dangerous solo missions because they value our opinions. [ There's a faint thread of bitterness — but she can't really complain, can she? She chose this. Knowingly. Because staying at his side had mattered more than living a safe and easy life. ] We just have to stay alive to spite them. At least until one of us ends up taking their place.

[ Him, probably. Not her. He always cared more than she did. ]

Well they should. We're the ones on the ground. I'm not making stuff up just to blow smoke up my own ass.

[ He was very careful with her hair, combing his fingers through it slowly and methodically as he gathered it, before reaching for his wand. A flick of his wrist later and a stream of water arced up from the bath and onto the back of her hair in a gentle, constant stream. He could feel the weight immediately increasing, but it also became a little easier to start easing out the tangles with his fingers. ]

They should have given Leia the job. She's way more experienced than any of them, and she can do the political speak too. But no, we ignore threats right under our noses, and punish a woman for daring to be related to a guy decades dead.

[ Andy smelled so good, and he could feel the space between them like a physical ache, but he didn't move to relieve it. ]

[ In that moment, the gentle tug of his fingers combing through her hair feels like all she's ever wanted — that, and the familiar sound of his voice just behind her, the feeling in it, that passion he speaks with that she so rarely finds the energy for. Truthfully, she doesn't give much of a damn what happens to the Ministry. She could just as well find a shack in the woods to live in and be more or less content with it. But he cares, so she cares because he does.

She glances over her shoulder at him, considering that handsome face for a moment before she responds with mild dryness: ]

I know. You're right. But do you really want to spend this whole reunion preaching to the choir?

[ The banter was already halfway formed on his tongue - No, you're right, I'd rather make the choir sing - but it was way, way too intimate a moment to remind them both of that particular aspect of their friendship. That was way too close to feelings. And if Poe had learned one thing, it was that the quickest way to get Andy to go cold on him was to imply those might be involved. And at the moment, he was too relieved to see and be with her to be able to pretend to just need a way to get off.

It was fine. Her friendship meant more to him than any romantic feelings ever would. So instead he gave her a rueful, slightly apologetic smile. ]

No, sorry. I just get so damn riled up about the whole thing. [ The closest thing he would do to feelings, right now, was lean in and press the quickest, purest peck of a kiss to her shoulder as an apology. ]

I'd rather spend a few days with you and maybe a bottle of giggle water and not think about any of that.

[ That brief, chaste kiss to her shoulder still draws all her attention to the place where his mouth so fleetingly presses against her skin. She’s been ignoring all the bruises and cuts, all the places that are sore and achy - but she can’t ignore that. It makes her want... ]

I could think of worse ways to spend a few days.

[ There’s a tangible pause. Then, finally, she lifts her hands to brush his away, just so she can turn around in the water to face him. She does nothing but watch him for another beat - then, as if some internal decision’s been made, she reaches out to cradle his face in her hands, holding him still so she can lean in to kiss him.

It doesn’t matter. They’ve been kissing since their school days. She’s memorized the way his lips feel by now. And if being apart from him so long makes the moment a little more poignant, well - that’s only natural, isn’t it? ]

[ She turns, and he draws in a breath, his eyes locked on her face. She's gorgeous, he's always known this, but there's something particularly sharp in the way she's looking at him now, hair half tamed in a dark, wild frame down her face, the wet locks sticking to the skin of her throat and her chest, curling past a few dark bruises on her shoulders.

So when she finally reached out to touch his face, when she finally leaned in to kiss him, it was like all the tension in him was suddenly released. His heart thumped, skipping a beat, the way it always did when someone kissed their best friend in a bath tub when she looked like she'd come through hell just to see him.

He let out a soft, relieved sound against her lips as he returned the kiss, eyes sliding shut as his mouth parted against hers, slowly but deliberately deepening the kiss.

God, he had missed her. ]

[ Something she can’t say out loud: That it was the thought of him that kept her going - knowing she had to come home to him, and staying sharp and strong because of it. She’s built a hardened reputation among the aurors, to the point of jokes about invincibility and immortality - because of how she always returns unfazed from whatever hell she’s been sent off to. But it’s always the same motivation, the same thing that makes her determined to make it back at any cost - him. Her best friend. Her partner.

The bottom of the tub is hard against her knees as she shifts in the water to straddle his lap, but she barely notices it. The only thing that matters then is to be close - as close as possible, as if to make up for months apart. No more playing casual now. Her mouth is hot and hungry against his, taking that kiss as if it belongs to her. ]

[ It does belong to her. It's always belonged to her, ever since the first fumbling attempts. Sure, he's lost count of the number of people he's kissed since - some of which she's also kissed - but in the end they always belonged to her.

His hands slid into the water to take her hips, pulling her up further onto his laps. The warm water was delaying his body's reaction, but not by a whole lot - she could no doubt feel him stirring under her as she pressed against him, as he met that kiss with an answering hunger that soon bordered on desperate.

He wanted to tell her how badly he missed her, how badly he wanted her, but he didn't trust himself not to ruin it. So he answered, he reacted, but he left the driving force solely up to her.

She could take anything she wanted from him.

She always could. ]

[ The same unspoken sentiments had been swelling in her chest since the moment she laid eyes on him — no, since the moment she'd even heard he was back. And she knows that's foolish — recklessly sentimental even, because there's always the chance that someday she's going to drag her tired aching body back from a mission and he won't be there waiting with his stupid shiteating grin and his "Hey, Andy", casual as you please. That's just how it is in this line of work. People die. Reputation aside, she isn't infallible either.

It's a keen awareness of that fact that gives a hard edge to her kiss as she takes his mouth for her own, her hands sliding back into his hair, tugging at the roots and breaking up the tangled curls as her fingers look for purchase. She grinds down into his lap, rubbing her body against his under the water as she kisses him to the point of breathlessness — leaving her words rough and ragged when she finally whispers into that minute space between their mouths: ]

I hated it. [ Lowly: ] I hated not knowing where you were. If you were alive or dead.

[ He braces his feet against the porcelain, knees breaking the water as he shifted under her. If it was what he pretended it to me - just sex, just a release, his hands would have gone to her ass, holding her firmly against him as he grinded against her.

But instead he wrapped an arm around her back, fingers spreading over her spine, as the other came up to cup the side of her face, fingertips sliding into her hair. He still raises his hips though, still meets every push against him with a hitching breath. It wasn't long until he was rock hard, pressed a little awkwardly under her, but he didn't go to move it. Feeling her move against him was amazing in itself. ]

Me too. [ Here, he could admit that. She could see through his bravado anyway, there was no one else to show off to. ] I kept sending missives to check if you'd come back yet and get nothing -- If anything happened to you--

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