Yes, my characters are OOC. I miss the time when we didn't have to worry about OOC because there was barely anything on the next gen. The Cursed Child conflicts with my preexisting head canons but oh well, because I prefer writing this Scorpius.

Disclaimer: Characters are owned by J.K.

Life has a funny way of kicking you down when you're too enervated to deal with being kicked down. For instance, when you crawl into bed at two in the morning finally finished with your Charms paper, only to remember that you still have a history project to finish. Or when you're already nervous about performing in front of hundreds of people only to realize the strap of your shoe has snapped just moments before.

Or, for example, when you're a good girl Miss Weasley and you realize you're in love with a womanizing, unfeeling, cold metal device Scorpius Malfoy. Who also happens to be the boy you're currently sleeping with. Accidentally, of course. All seventeen times.

But seriously, love? Is this mess not melodramatic enough already?

The thing is, Malfoy and I have an arrangement. A strictly no emotions, no attachment, only sex kind of arrangement. And I may have just violated that arrangement, big time.

The first time it happened, I was drunk and curled up all teenage angst-like in the corner while clutching a bottle of firewhiskey at a graduation party. The party is sort of a blur to me now, but I remember crystal clear how a mass of blinding platinum blonde hair made its way over to me and gracefully slid down beside me. I marveled at how he was able to be so suave when his head was probably spinning worse than mine.

"I never would have thought you would be the emo kind of drunk." He smirked at me, one of the two expressions he can produce – the other being a condescending, apathetic glance.

As soon as he opened his mouth, I remembered that the owner of this beautiful blonde hair was none other than the fantastic Mr. Malfoy, playboy extraordinaire. I narrowed my eyes to slits. "I'm not emo, Malfoy. I simply fancy my time alone," I said pointedly, expressing my desire for him to leave.

But he's Malfoy and he doesn't take any hints or orders from anyone. "A pretty girl like you should never be alone," he said suggestively, breathing into my ear.

I scoffed. "Yeah, so I can protect myself from the likes of you." But for some reason, my inebriated self didn't move the slightest bit away. I was drawn to him – the way the dim light highlighted his chiseled jaw, the way his grey eyes stared intensely into mine, like I was drowning in something I never even dove in.

So when he let out a breathy half laugh and murmured, "I want you, Weasley," I didn't pull away. I leaned into him, because aside from being drawn to his aesthetic beauty, I was drawn to how natural his confidence was, how confidence just slid perfectly around him like your snuggest pair of jeans.

When I found myself naked in his bed the next morning, I slipped out quietly without a glance back. I knew giving this a second thought would make it the situation more scary, more real. And just maybe, this sweep-it-under-the-carpet mindset was the part of me letting myself have a repeat without worrying if I was disrespecting myself.

So when I encountered the same situation, two, three, four, seventeen times later, I didn't protest. Not physically, not mentally. I let him seduce me, undress me, caress me like no one else ever has. By then we had an agreement, silent, but nonetheless present. We both didn't like relationships and the baggage that came with it, we both didn't like each other, and we both liked sex. It started out just by randomly seeing each other at a party or a bar. But it quickly became something we sought out. We owled each other meeting times, we waited for each other after work, we showed up at each others apartments. Whenever one was exhausted or lonely or angry, the other would always be there as an escape to something constant, no questions asked.

Only now I'm standing outside the coffee shop we're supposed to meet at – I stare at the way he smiles smoothly at the pretty waitress, the way he nimbly folds his hands around his coffee mug, the way he looks so comfortable with himself in every situation he's ever been in. I feel my heart pounding against my ribcage, as if its a reckless lion trying one last valiant attempt at freedom. I feel the way I'm unable to look away despite everything else blurring around me like the feeling of drowning. And now I know.

I am unabashedly in love with Scorpius Malfoy.

He looks up from his mug and gives me a smirk as he sees me. I try to swallow my heart and shove it back into my chest where it belongs and walk in the shop as if I didn't just have the hugest revelation in my entire life.

He notices something is off as soon as I walk through the doors. He knows me well enough, he's seen every expression of mine, from my angriest glare to my most vulnerable sighs. And I know him well enough to know that he sees something unfamiliar written on my face, in the kind of ink that's only visible to him.

Aside from being perceptive, Scorpius Malfoy is also a complete bastard. Which is why he doesn't ask if something is wrong or attempt to inquire what's on my mind. Instead, he opts for "My place or yours?" with a swoon-worthy smirk. He chooses to completely ignore it, just like he does with anything related to, dare I say it, feelings.

I feel weak in my knees, and there seems to be a cement mixer in my head. I'm not strong enough for this anymore – I'm not strong enough to run around with him pretending like I do not care when I so clearly do. And the worst part about this is that I don't even have time to think this through. It's now or never. He's standing in front of me waiting for us to continue through our normal routine and I know that if I break this routine, he will know – he will know.

Well I guess it's never.

Because moments after I weakly whisper "Yours", we're in his flat and his hands are all over me and I'm drowning again, deeper and deeper, only I realize I've probably been drowning all this time, since the moment we started at the graduation party back in June. His mouth is on my neck, then my shoulder, and he breathes"You're so fucking hot" but all I can think is this is so fucking messed up. He only wants me because I'm a cute innocent Weasley and he likes getting what he shouldn't have.

I don't even realize I'm crying until his hands are in my hair and he's gently kissing the tears off my cheeks. "Rose, are you going to tell me what's wrong now?"

And perhaps I'm angry, like super fucking angry. How dare he suggest that I should have told him anything earlier. How dare he suggest that he's entitled to knowing without him asking. How dare he even think that I would tell him when he's so apathetic all the time, when anything involving stupid emotions seems to utterly disinterest him. How dare he act like he actually fucking cares when I know he's only worried that I'm done for the night.

"Maybe you should have asked before you realized you weren't getting laid tonight." And with that I button my jeans, grab my coat, and apparate the fuck out of there. Because I think I might be most angry with myself, for falling in love with a complete bastard.

I remember this one time, we were laying in my bed after, you know, evening activities, and we were both so still and content with listening to the hushed whispers of the late night. Being with him like this is so easy, I thought. And apparently he was thinking the same because Scorpius rolled over to look at me in the moonlight. He said softly, "You know, Weasley, sometimes when we're like this, I forget who we are."

I turned by head to look back at him, struck for a moment by how he was able to read my mind exactly. I nodded, completely understanding, "Yeah."

In the real world, he was Scorpius Malfoy and I was Rose Weasley. He was a cold-hearted machine and I was a woman too proud for her own good. But at night we were just two people who surrendered their walls for Fun Times.

We went back to bask in the silence of the little world we created where we weren't so discordant, where we blended together just fine.

But when the sun rose again so did our walls.

I manage to ignore him for three weeks and four days, all of his owls, all of his attempts to approach me after work, to fuck me, I presume.

So I can't say I'm surprised now that I find him in my flat sitting in my favorite red arm chair like he owns the goddamn place. Even though I'll never admit it out loud, I love that he's able to be comfortable in any and every situation. The world could be turning upside down and burning from the inside out and he'd find a way to get to the moon and watch the world burn like he planned it all along.

But that also means he doesn't give any shits that the world is burning, as usual. Indifferent, unfeeling, cold.

"Fun night, huh?" I physically feel the hairs on my body raise as I watch his eyes move up and down my revealing outfit. He peeks around me and shrugs at the lack of male company after my night at the pub and gives me a mock pitying glance. "Well, I guess not that much fun."

"The fuck you want, Malfoy." It may be that I'm drunk and physically and emotionally drained, but I swear I see him wince when I spit his last name out like it's poison, because that's what he is, poison.

"Maybe I just wanted to make sure you were still fucking alive, Rose." The playfulness in his voice is gone and replaced with a strong bitterness.

"You mean alive enough so you can fuck me?" I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth that they aren't true, but I can't take them back now.

He stands, throws his hands up and squints at me like I'm this stranger that's really beginning to agitate him. "Have you gone fucking mental?"

"I'm right, aren't I? Don't try to act like you actually fucking care."

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "So what if I don't care? We both agreed that we didn't care, and that's why we worked."

Don't cry, Rose. Don't cry. Not for this, not for him, especially not for a boy that apparently never cared.

I spit back at him. "That's my point, don't you get it? I started to care, and you still don't. And that's why we don't work anymore."

He shakes his head like he's disappointed in me. "I knew you were dense, but I didn't know you were downright moronic."

"Oh yeah, that will really get a girl into your bed," I mutter.

He sighs impatiently. "I owled you seven different times. I waited for you after work for the last three days. I even got you this stupid present." He throws a package on the sofa behind me. Right, Christmas is tomorrow. "And I don't know if standards are just really high these days, but I think that shows that I fucking care."

He adds, "Just in case you haven't noticed, it's one in the morning on a Friday night and I should be celebrating my mate's promotion with him, but I'm here, waiting up for you to come home because I miss you."

Did I just lose consciousness for a second or did Scorpius Malfoy just admit out loud that he misses me? "You miss me?" I cringe at how weak and small my voice sounds.

He softens and loses his angry demeanor. "I just – I can't get you out of my head, you know? I could be having a laugh with Albus or reading the paper or brushing my teeth, but whatever I'm doing, your annoying voice is always," he taps his head, "in here."

"Remember that night I told you how sometimes I forgot who we were? I realized that was flawed. We don't change at nighttime. We don't change when we aren't together. If anything we're truer forms of ourselves." He looks at me for some kind of acknowledgment that he wasn't alone in this line of thought. I nod for him to continue. "I was scared of it at first, you know? I've never thought about a person so much. It was scary how you seemed to pervade my life without even trying and it wasn't just that I thought about you all the time, it was that it was you, because you're so...so..."

"Weasley?" Referencing the fact that I was sort of 'forbidden' to a 'Malfoy'.

He shook his head. "Brilliant."

He moves closer and gently trails his finger down my cheek and I feel his touch like its fire because it's like every nerve in my body is concentrated on the one spot that has contact with him. "I was afraid you were smart enough not to want me back, not to want someone who didn't deserve you, didn't even amount to half the brilliance that you are. But I'm here because I wanted to know if you would just consider giving us a chance."

For the first time in weeks, I smile, really smile. Wordlessly, I kiss him. This time, the kiss is sweet and soft and loving, instead of hot and breathy and secretive. The kiss isn't jaded with any external pent up emotions like stress or loneliness or anger. It's simply two people trying to convey their feelings in the truest form. From the way he kisses me back with such fiery conviction, I know he knows.

We're two people who don't need words as validation because we know that actions speak louder. I look back on the past few months, and if I weren't making out with the one and only, Scorpius Malfoy, I would have smacked myself in the head. I should have known a strictly sex-only relationship was doomed from the beginning. The mornings we shared when we both were running late, in between the banter, he would make the coffee and I'd butter the toast and somehow we'd manage to be ready on time. Or when we'd show up at each others work with sandwiches and tea for the other, we'd sit and talk about our day like old friends. But I think my favorite was our post-sex conversations at three in the morning, because I got to know the vulnerable, very human, Scorpius Malfoy, that the rest of the world didn't see. We were dating without even knowing it because we were both too blind to see what was right in front of us. I almost laugh out loud against his lips because damn, how stupid were we?

I push those thoughts aside momentarily though, because Merlin, I'm drowning again, and I never want to stop.

~~ review ~~

- crashthrough