Written for Pairing One Hour Challenge (prompt: Susan/Lavender, "Shelter" by Birdy).
Written for September Event at Hogwarts (prompt: (word) future, (emotion) nervous).
Written for Challenges by the Dozen at Caesar's Palace (prompt: write about 10 different pairings).
WC: 519
Susan is a simple girl. She likes sunshine on her skin in the fall. Butterflies flitting from one to one flower to another make her happy. Warm summer rain remind her of jumping in puddles. She likes pink lemonade and girls in sundresses.
It's all the better that Lavender knows how to make pink lemonade and wears sundresses in the summer.
Susan only wishes that Lavender would wear them outside as well.
"You don't have to pretend that I'm beautiful," Lavender says. Drawing her curly hair over her face like a curtain, she tries to hid the worst of her scars. She has tried cream, glamours, surgery, makeup, everything but acceptance.
So Susan tries to give it to her.
"I'm not pretending," she whispers before descending hungrily onto Lavender's stomach, tracing lower, lower...
"You don't have to lie," Lavender gasps, still stubborn. Her right hand is entwined tightly with Susan's left, enough to feel like it's being crushed.
"I never have to lie when it comes to you," Susan says, meaning every bit of it.
Lavender's bottom lip starts to protrude a bit, and she pulls her legs back towards her and sits on them. When Lavender hastily pulls the covers around her, and Susan suddenly feels too naked.
"What's wrong?"
"Could we turn off the lights? Please."
"Oh, Lavender." Susan, who has always felt plain, feels a pang of sorrow for this girl who thinks her beauty has been stolen by a monster. She climbs under the covers and cuddles up next to Lavender, no longer reveling at the skin-on-skin touch. "Lav, look at me."
"I can't."
"Are you nervous?"
"Yes."
Susan rubs Lavender's shoulder. "We shouldn't if you don't want to."
"I know," Lavender says with a sigh. "I want to, but I don't want you to see all of this." She gestures generally at her body.
"Do they bring back bad memories? The scars."
"Yes."
Susan thinks back to school, when her relatives were dropping like flies, how hearing her last name when teachers called roll reminded her of catacombs. She thinks back to an OWL question that talked about a duel, and her brain going off on its own accord into thinking about the duel that Amelia Bones might have had before Voldemort killed her. She tastes the name Voldemort on her tongue, and she finds that while it is still bitter, it is no longer poisonous.
"I know what you mean."
Two girls broken by a war they fought when they were even younger stare at the blue bedroom wall ahead of them. Outwardly, they seem detached, lost in their memories. But beneath the sheets, their hands are clasped tightly and their feet playing footsie under the covers.
"You want to turn off the lights?" Susan says. Her voice cracks on the last word and Lavender giggles as she nods.
"Well, okay." Susan leans over to grab her wand from the nightstand and flips off the lights.
The past no longer matters so much as she sees the future, clear as a brick-road.
She doesn't need anyone perfect right now. She just needs Lavender.