Signs
AUTHOR NOTE: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Slash, yes, my first... brave new world etc. If you don't like that then don't read it! Dumbledore/Grindelwald. And this is for my friend Tash who first introduced me to the idea and complained that there was no fic.
Please be nice, please comment, please don't hate me, please enjoy and, as always: not mine!
He looks back, he doesn't want to but he can't help it. It's hard not to; it's always there, the past. And he thinks to himself: were there signs?
Neither of them could remember how it happened, not really. It didn't really start anywhere, it more of just became and fell into the gentle rhythm of the norm. But they both remember the first kiss.
It wasn't planned either, it sort of just came to the point where Al couldn't stand the walls the ignorance put between them. The way that neither of them could bring themselves to acknowledge it just in case it wasn't. They'd spent the day planning, scheming, the usual. But eventually the conversation diminished into not much at all. It was times like this that conversation became slower and more awkward with the lack of certainty; both too scared to let something slip.
"Grin?" He'd been talking about nothing but the interruption still made him go quiet. Grin stood up and went to replace a book on it's shelf. He heard Al rise and turned slowly to look up into the taller boy's eyes. It only took a moment for decisive tension to freeze the air and he felt the lips against his. It lasted a few seconds and then there was breathing to remember and he didn't want to open his eyes anymore than a crack. He waited a moment before leaning forward to kiss him back.
"Gellert!"
He stopped millimetres away. They both stepped back at the same time, Grin ran a hand through his pale hair as Bathilda's steps grew louder as she mounted the stairs. Al had picked up his bag and was at the door at the same time as Bathilda.
"Albus, I see you're still here then. Are you staying for supper, dear, or do you have to get back to your family?"
Al turned to meet Grin's eyes but there was little that could be said without words so instead he turned back to the witch to thank her for the kind offer but unfortunately he did have to leave.
"I'll see you tomorrow then?" A nod passed between them and he was gone.
Bathilda was away with work for the next few weeks but she'd drop by once a week to check he was still alive and hadn't destroyed the house, or the rest of the planet, yet. She'd told him he would stay with the Dumbledores' if it was necessary or if he ran out of food. By the third day Al had stayed the night.
Grin was quite comfortable with one of Al's arms slung over his waist and the tattoo of breath on the back of his neck but he knew the moment he woke in the early hours that he had to get up. He slid away from the other boy who turned over, the moonlight highlighting his red hair. He pulled a jumper over his shirt and trousers over his pyjamas and, taking socks and shoes with him, quietly left the room.
He shut the back door behind him and walked to the middle of the garden. Out here he could breathe, breathe without smelling the now familiar scent of his accomplice. Accomplice. The term failed to fit now and he began to wonder what he'd gotten into. This wasn't really efficient behaviour for someone with ideas like his but there was something he had found here in tiny Godric's Hollow, in tiny England that he'd never experienced, wanted, known. In Europe, at Durmstrang where he'd been a good inch shorter than most, been too outspoken, too different. Where he's father's significance could have earned him friends, had he acknowledge it. His dramatic ideas had cost him dearly but he was finally beginning to feel as if it might not all of been in vain. His father's disappointment, his 'suggested' retreat to a distant family member somewhere distant, it wasn't all that bad now he had a friend, a... . Al.
Al woke, alone as usual, only this time he shouldn't be. He should probably be with his family, who needed him so badly right now, but being the eldest at such a time made him feel tested and measured; he had to do the right thing all the time and it was so hard to be so responsible all the time, to look after the others all the time. He needed someone else to talk about something else with, anything else. Ever since he'd left Hogwarts he'd felt so isolated. Not anymore.
It was hours later that Al found him sitting on a stone bench by the pond, shivering and staring into the broken reflections of the water, like a cracked mirror. Al sat beside him and looked at their odd reflection, the two boys sat together, such an odd pair, with such a future. His hand found Grin's wrist and ran down to grasp his hand.
Not alone.