A/N: I got inspiration for this after reading the first few chapters of "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth. That should explain the title for now. It feels strange to write something outside of a challenge or competition for once. :P Also, I suppose this could be viewed as a companion piece to "Patchwork" but both can be read separately.
Thank you to At Some Actor's West Side Loft for betaing!
Credit to cover image goes to viria13 on DeviantART.
I would /really/ like feedback on my smut writing. This is the first time I've published a story like this, and critiques are greatly welcomed.
"They're all asleep, and they're not waking up."
She whispers it in a voice soaked in pure adrenaline, tongue dripping with the remnants of lost mischief. Ginny had lost the old spark of looking for a little thrill when more danger and threat began to loom over Hogwarts in the time of her sixth year, but somehow she's found it again in the late hours between midnight and dawn.
"Hmm?" It's Luna's voice, sweet little Luna's voice, that makes its way through the darkness. She's sluggish with sleep, eyes still closed, but she hums as though she's lost in a precious dream she doesn't want to let slip through her grasp.
Ginny can identify with the feeling. It's a rush of pure selfishness that coerces her to wake Luna up, and for a second it feels as though every inch of her body is being stabbed with a million knives. She almost pulls away.
"Hmm... Ginny?" Luna blinks. "What's wrong?"
She doesn't.
"Everyone's asleep," Ginny whispers, eyes shining with a burning intensity. "And there's a silencing charm around your bed." She holds up her wand as explanation.
Luna looks blearily around before she blinks again. She's still surrounded by the dark Ravenclaw blue curtains she remembers drawing around her bed before she went to sleep, she still lays in the white star patterned clothes she remembers pulling on the night before. Ginny, however, is still in her Gryffindor robes.
"How did you get in here?" Luna asks.
"It took some stubbornness," Ginny says in reply. And the note of finality in her tone tells Luna that is all she's going to say.
So Luna asks a different question, although one that doesn't completely stray from the last. Her tone is both accusing and curious. "Why are you here?"
Ginny swallows. "I... I needed to go somewhere."
Luna blinks again, tilting her head slightly to the side. There was more to that, and she knew it.
Ginny begins to gnaw on her lip, feeling more uncomfortable as the seconds go by. After all, she's in her best friend's bed, standing over her on all fours in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.
"I... I needed somewhere," she says. "an escape..." Somehow, it becomes easier for her to talk after those few words come out. "I needed you."
Luna's eyebrows are raised, but she looks at Ginny understandingly. "Well, I did say you could come talk to me anytime you needed me."
"Except I don't want to talk," Ginny says. She relaxes her arms a bit, letting them slide down so she's resting on her elbows. Her hands come closer to Luna's head, her fingers start to gently fiddle with the ends of her dirty blonde hair. "I want to do something else."
It takes a while for Luna to reply, and in that time, Ginny's heart rate picks up. It begins as a soft pound, perhaps just going a little faster than normal, then it rapidly begins to thump warm blood throughout her system, setting her chest on fire, causing her breaths to hitch, granting her body an extreme desire to move.
That's when Luna says, "Okay."
And in no time, Ginny's lips are on hers, moving fast and fluidly as adrenaline courses like an electric shock through her body. Then she's moving slow, appealing to what Luna wants. She had reached a hand into Ginny's long hair, gently tugged, and that was all it took.
Ginny lays herself down, resting her limbs for a moment until her body begins to fight for more air. She pulls her lips away from Luna's and gasps, then she shakes her hair out of her face, whips her tie off and throws it to the ground. If there is one thing Gryffindors know better than any other house, it's how to keep moving.
Ginny almost smirks.
She shrugs off her robes in no time at all, so it's only her skirt, knickers and socks she wears below the T-shirt that gently hugs her figure. She gives Luna a look as she takes that off too.
Luna raises an eyebrow. "I think it's courtesy for you take mine off for me."
To say Ginny's eyebrows shot up would be an understatement, but once her skirt is off as well as her socks, she complies.
First comes the tie, which she undoes with ease and throws to the side, then comes unbuttoning Luna's night clothes, which Ginny knew she would have too much fun doing.
Perhaps stripping the other girl isn't so much of a chore as once thought.
She bends, holding herself up with her knees. Her back is in a slope, bare with only her bra straps just waiting to be unclasped. Her breasts hang low, just inches above Luna's body, begging to be let free. A growing fire scathes at her core, spreading from her chest to only end up at one place.
She groans.
And the last button on Luna's shirt breaks as she rips it apart.
Luna's hands reach slowly up behind Ginny's back, cooling her burning skin, brushing over the straps of her bra like the touch of a feather.
"I really do hope nobody hears us," is what Luna says before everything is engulfed in silence, and the only thing that can be heard is the snap of an undone bra.
Then they're both fire and water, complementing opposites in a world of insurgence.
Ginny slips Luna's nightshirt out from under her and tosses it away, as though it were a dam blocking her from water after weeks of thirst, as though it were a fence locking her out from a utopia, as though it were stress and pain keeping her from bliss.
For a moment, the knives come back to stab her, but Ginny is too immersed in Luna's kiss for the guilt to last. Seconds turn to minutes and it's just both of them alone, enraptured in the silence, sharing what Ginny is certain neither of them assume is love.
Luna's hand grazes softly up her arm, reaching her shoulder to pull her closer. Their lips are fluid against each other, and Ginny takes the time to realise just how soothing Luna could be, just how soft she is, how calming, how gentle but still controlling she is, and how much her presence often lit up the darkness in her soul, if only for a little while.
Ginny feels the need to say sorry. But she doesn't say it now, not yet.
"Are you okay?" she whispers in what still doesn't feel like her own voice, but she says it anyway.
"Mhm," Luna hums. "Perfectly okay." Her fingers skim the hem of Ginny knickers, and if there were any form of light, she might have caught the sight of a smirk of Luna's face, but she doesn't. Her eyes close. She shivers. Hot electricity comes back to tease her.
"Do it," Ginny almost hisses. It turns into a whine, and she throws her head back. "Do it..."
Luna shimmies Ginny's knickers down, enough for the other girl to easily slip them off with one hand. Ginny throws them to the floor, and works at taking the other half of Luna's night clothes off. She succeeds in seconds, and it's the first time Ginny can properly feel the wetness between her legs. She's soaked, and so is Luna.
"You're wet," Ginny coos. Luna looks down in time enough to see Ginny's finger tracing the inside of her leg. She sticks it in her mouth, then releases it with a pop.
Luna lets out a shaky sigh, setting her head back. She breathes unsteady breaths as Ginny's hands warm the inside of her thighs, slowly making their way up to press against her clit. Ginny can't help but feel a rush of satisfaction at Luna's reaction.
She snuck into Ravenclaw tower for purely selfish reasons. The least she can do is offer Luna the same comfort and pleasure she so often gave her.
Luna's eyes are closed, mouth slightly open in an attempt to breath but it seems time has frozen for her. Her hands lay beside her head, completely open, vulnerable towards grasp. Ginny takes the chance to grab her hand and place a short kiss upon her tender lips. She massages her clit, beginning to move a little faster with each passing minute. She grins at every sigh, every groan, and every whine Luna makes.
She sticks a finger inside her.
Luna throws her head back, a slight moan escaping her lips. Ginny repositions her hands so she can massage Luna's clit with her thumb. She sticks another finger inside her, and Luna arches her back.
Ginny kisses her another time, and she doesn't know where all of this sudden affection came from, but it's there. She lets her other hand graze Luna's back as she goes faster. Faster. Faster.
Then everything is silent once more aside from Luna's breath. It hitches, and she throws her head back, eyes half-open and half-closed. She stops breathing for only a moment. Time is freezing for her again.
Ginny smiles. Perhaps time is freezing for her too.
Luna lets out a long sigh. Ginny watches her, slowly slipping her fingers out of her. It's as though she's watching an hourglass slowly run out of sand. She only now becomes aware of the ticking clock in the background.
For a while, it's only the silence between the seconds of Luna's breathing. When Luna finally decides to speak, Ginny realises she's been holding her breath.
"Why?" The words comes as something between a sigh and a gasp. Luna sounds genuinely curious, maybe even confused.
"I-" Ginny gulps. "I don't know." She suddenly gets the urge to sit up, grab her clothes and flee the room, but something is keeping her from doing so - a voice in the back of her mind saying that running would be the act of a coward.
Her hands grip the bed sheets, turning her knuckles white. The voice makes Ginny realise just how much she would hate being a coward.
Luna sits up, grabs Ginny's arm, and the tension in her muscles decreases.
"I know why you came here," Luna says. Her eyes are soft, and they make the tears that well up in Ginny's own so much more painful.
"Why did you ask then?" Ginny says. She didn't mean to say with a snap, but she did.
"Because. Maybe you would have preferred to tell me rather than I tell you." Luna kisses her cheek. "It's okay."
Ginny sits there like a child, edge of the bed sheets balled up in her hands and tears in her eyes, lip in a pout. She doesn't want to cry, but a sob breaks through the barrier of her mouth and then they don't stop.
"WHY?!" Ginny sobs, falling forward to grip Luna's shoulders. The other girl is stiff for only a second before her hands wrap around Ginny in a hug. "What's wrong with me..."
Luna hums in her ear, rocking her, saying nothing. Ginny continues to cry, and every sob that bubbles up in her throat to overflow through her mouth is painful. But if there is anyone she can be comfortable being weak around, it's Luna.
Eventually, her tears subside, and she pulls away.
"You know, crying is very healthy," Luna says.
Ginny gives her a look.
"It is." She nods, returning Ginny's look as though she's denying fact.
"It's pathetic," Ginny mutters, wiping at her eyes with the bed sheets.
"It's only pathetic to the weak and the ignorant."
Ginny looks up at again. Luna isn't smiling.
She suddenly becomes aware that both of them are still naked. Ginny can feel her face heat up but it she wonders how she could sit here with Luna for so long and not feel awkward until now. She reaches down to grab her clothes.
Luna stops her, gently grabbing her arm again. Ginny looks at her for only half a second before Luna kisses her, sweet and tender lips on her rough and chapped ones. Ginny had spent the last few weeks sucking and biting them raw. They don't hurt as much when Luna pulls away.
The two girls sit there staring at each other, then Ginny jerks herself out of this stupor and dresses herself.
Minutes pass when on of them decides to speak again. "The war will be over soon." It's Luna.
Ginny's silent for a moment. "I know..." She looks Luna full in the face, eyes wide. "I don't want to be scared."
"None of us will be afraid when something actually happens." Luna says. She sounds so sure, and Ginny knows she's right. Neither she nor Luna or Neville would ever back down from a fight. Perhaps they would fear it when it hung taunting them from a distance, waiting to strike, but when it showed its face something always kept them from running away.
Ginny almost smiles, but she hides it.
She stands up, sweeping her robes back to look at Luna one last time for that night. The words leave her mouth a little cracked. "I'm sorry."
Luna moves and kisses her lips again, letting the seconds draw out, then she pulls away. "You're forgiven," she says softly. "Thank you."
And it's then that Ginny realises she came here purely for herself, but had given so much more to Luna.
She doesn't feel like such a bad person after that.
She leaves, the ghost of a smile on her face.