Title: A Great Plan
Pairing: Godric/Salazar
Prompts: Red, Green and "Whoever is happy will make others happy too" – Anne Frank.
Characters: Godric, Salazar, Rowena & Helga.
Word Count: 2, 927
Authors note: This is my first attempt at writing about this era so be nice!
Red. Green. Green. Red. Some would say the two colours matched but most would claim the opposite. Actually, to that very day Salazar had never heard anyone other than Helga and Rowena tell him that red and green matched and thus he assumed that very much like gold and silver the colours red and green were each other's opposites. Just like he and Godric were each other's opposites. He was tranquil, soft and scheming while Godric was flashy, easy-to-read and quick to act without as much as a thought on the consequences. They were like day and night, like winter and summer; Salazar was dusk that ended the day while Godric was dawn that signalled its beginning. Salazar was the sea at its calmest while Godric was the sea in the middle of a storm. Helga did not agree with him. Rowena did not agree with him. But Salazar was, according to both females, the most stubborn person to have walked the planet and wouldn't listen to them. He knew though no one seemed to agree with him that he and Godric had nothing in common. Maybe that was the reason his eyes grew bigger when he saw the colourful man walk into the library.
Salazar rarely smiled, that didn't mean that he was unhappy in any way, and he walked with a certain calm in his steps. He was calculating and some would claim cold although Salazar himself didn't see it that way. He assumed the worst of people and knew through vivid reading of history of what human beings were capable of when stood in front of something they deemed to be not normal.
Godric Gryffindor was never seen without a smile on his face. Correction, until that moment Godric had never been seen without a smile on his face. He had also never been seen walking without his usual skip that seemed to come natural to him and made his curls bump up and down. This was a version of Godric that Salazar had never seen before; a more solemn, quiet version.
Godric walked slowly up and down the rows of books, completely oblivious to the other man's gaze. His curly brown hair had recently been cut but he still hadn't gotten used to it. Every now and again he would run his fingers through them and his facial expression would turn into a confused one when his curls ended before he believed they would. He was a fit man and the clothes he wore clung perfectly to his body and sometimes you could see the muscles flexing underneath. Like when he stood on his toes to reach for a book that was particularly high up but refused to use a ladder because ´that wasn't necessary´. Once he'd reached the book he looked for he brought it down and held it gently against his lower arm while flicking through the pages. His glasses slid down his nose and repeatedly he had to push them up again. Salazar was almost completely sure that Godric would leave without having noticed him, as per usual, when the brown headed man looked up from his book and sent him a crooked smile.
"You're staring at me." Godric teased and closed his book with a bang that made Salazar blink. He didn't have any time to answer that statement before Godric continued. "What are you reading?"
"Nothing you'd be interested in." Salazar retorted and turned the book around so that the wrong side was facing upwards.
"Fair enough!" Godric shrugged and went back to gazing the bookshelves for something else this time.
"What are you looking for?" Salazar asked.
"Nothing you'd be interested in." Godric replied without missing a beat and sent him a wink with his golden eyes. There was no other way of describing them. They were too light to be brown but no other colour suited; gold was the only thing that could measure with its shimmering.
"If you tell me maybe I can help you look for it." Salazar retorted.
Godric looked away from the shelves, seemed to ponder his offer and then he shook his head. His facial expression had for a moment looked unsure but only for a brief moment and then it was back to its normal smile that had everyone fawn over him like the school boy he wasn't pretending to be.
"No thanks," he replied and put the book on the inside of his cloak where he put most of his things. "I think I'm good for today. I've found what I was looking for. Thanks anyway, I'll see you at dinner; don't be late."
Salazar watched Godric as he disappeared from the library and then tried to get back to his book. But for the first time, Salazar assumed since he could read, getting back into the world that existed between the lines of the pages were impossible. His mind kept drifting back to Godric and the way he had looked when he stood in front of the shelves looking for something. Eventually he gave up on reading and decided to do something else but just outside the library Salazar ran into someone who made his curiosity peak.
"Do you know what Godric is up to?" Helga, a young woman with sparkling red hair and green eyes walked up to him which such enthusiasm that she would have knocked him to the ground had she not stopped in time. She was shorter than him, even when she stood on her toes, and to Salazar that was ever so amusing.
"I have no interest in what he is doing." Salazar retorted in his calm manner which did nothing to settle Helga's enthusiasm. "Why are you asking me when you should be asking him?"
"Because he told me that he wouldn't say. Godric said to keep calm, go do something else while I wait and that we'll find out at dinner." Helga's face scrunched up when she said the word wait and Salazar couldn't help but smile. There were few words that brought with it that kind of reaction from the happy-go-lucky witch; but the word wait was one of them. "He also said that we'd love it."
"Then it's worth the waiting, isn't it?" Salazar asked and Helga nodded; she rolled her eyes while doing it but it was a nod never the less. "Do you want to go play some chess with me before dinner?"
"I suppose," Helga had more in common with Godric than she knew Salazar thought as he walked next to her. Helga too had a certain skip in the way she moved.
Despite having lived in the castle for many years she looked around as if she were seeing things for the very first time and looked constantly astounded by the beauty she was surrounded with. There was a certain childishness aura surrounding her just like there was a certain immaturity about Godric. Their biggest common trait, Salazar soon realised, was lack of patience. Mere minutes into the game Helga began losing patience. She couldn't sit still and Salazar had to remind her that it was her move. When Rowena offered to take her place, Salazar could barely contain the sigh that escaped his lips at the thought of playing with someone more invested in the game. Rowena however proved to come with a whole different set of problems. The young women with the black flowing hair kept looking up at him with a sly expression on her face. Salazar vowed that he would not ask what it was about but the more time that went by the more curious he became.
"Why are you looking at me like that for?"
"Godric is up to something."
"Godric is always up to something. Why is he always up to something?"
"He's believes that by being happy he can make other people happy and coming up with these great ideas makes him happy. Also, that may be right." Rowena concluded. "But this time there is a specific reason for it. Are you curious about what he's up to this time?"
"No."
"What if I tell you that you are very much involved."
Salazar's interest peaked and he glanced away from the vicious killing of yet another pawn. "Is this your way of telling me that I am to be the target of yet a brutal prank?"
"No, this is my way of saying that something extra-ordinary is about to happen and that I find it extraordinarily amazing that you seem to be completely oblivious as to what that is; or why it's happening at all."
Salazar leaned back and looked at Rowena with an amused smile on his pale face. "Fine, I'll take the bait. What is he planning and why am I involved in it?"
Rowena laughed in a way that had Salazar gritting his teeth because of how annoying he found the smugness of the way she was acting. "I've changed my mind. I'm not going to tell you anymore."
"You are impossible." Salazar told her but didn't nag for Rowena to tell him.
The feelings of impatience grew rapidly from that point onwards. Salazar had never experienced that kind of impatience before and when dinner had arrived he was almost buzzing with excitement as to what Godric had up his sleeve. Occasionally during the feast, he would look at Godric to see if he could see some kind of movement, anything that would indicate that something was going to happen; but the man remained still. He was deeply involved in a conversation with Rowena; so deeply involved in fact that he didn't notice the way Salazar's eyes lingered at his slightly bent forward body. His curls, despite being much shorter now somehow made their way in front of his eyes and Salazar for some reason felt the deep-rooted need to move them. He imagined that the brown curls would feel smooth against Salazar's pale skin. Salazar couldn't, for a brief moment, feel anything but shocked about the sudden desire that he had felt few times before. He shook his head and went back to eating his food but struggled to completely let Godric out of his sight; in case something was to happen.
"I'm going to bed." Godric said later that night, before either of the other three were indicating that they were going to leave. He was already standing up. "Goodnight, I'll see you tomorrow."
No one tried to stop him nor ask him why he was going to bed so early. Rowena and Helga looked at each other and then down on the ground while the tension buzzed in the air. Salazar sat quietly in his seat while thoughts roamed his mind. He gritted his teeth and just as Godric disappeared out of sight he stood up and rushed down the hall after him. Godric had something planned and Salazar was going to find out what it was before it drove him crazy. It didn't take long before he caught up with him. Godric walked slowly with his head directed towards the floor and his hands in his pockets.
"Godric." When Salazar called his name the man half-turned and looked up.
"Salazar." Godric greeted back with a one-sided smile once the blond man stood a meter or two away from him. "Where are you heading in such a rush?"
"What did you have planned?" Salazar asked.
Godric frowned. "What did I have planned?"
"You can give up the innocent act." Salazar said and took another step towards him. Godric responded by crossing his arms over his chest and squinted at the blond man. "Helga told me that you had something planned for dinner and then Rowena said that it had something to do with me. I know you have something planned and I want to know what it was so that I can stop being curious about it."
Godric nodded and let out a tiny laugh as he slowly backed towards the wall. Eventually his back hit the hard, cold stone and he touched his lips with the tips of his fingers the way he always did when he was thinking deeply about something. "That's why you're here? Because you're curious about what I was planning on doing at dinner and you're only curious because you were told it involved you?"
Salazar blushed. "Well yeah, and you should tell me. I thought higher of you Godric. I expected that you would actually go through with your plans rather than just spread news about them and then let them go to waste. You should be ashamed of yourself, really."
Godric hummed. "I do see your point."
"Also, it's- wait what?" Salazar stopped midsentence. He too, without noticing had moved to the other side of the wall and stood on the opposite side of Godric. Even then they were each other's opposites.
Salazar stood with his back straight and could feel the cold of the walls spreading across his legs and his back. Godric stood slightly leaned forward, one foot was carrying the weight of his body while the other looked merely as decoration.
Godric nodded. "I see your point. What is the idea of planning this great plot and not going through with it? It's quite a shame really. I've put all this time on this plan of mine and I've even involved you and now all of the sudden I'm not going through with it."
Salazar nodded. "I couldn't have said it better myself." For some reason his throat felt dry as sand and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't find a good reason for it.
Godric hummed again, it was a sound that reminded Salazar of a purring cat which in itself was ironic. "I'm going to tell you why I decided not to go through with my plans. I decided that it was a bad idea and I decided that you weren't going to like me very much if I went through with it. So, there you go."
"What?" Salazar frowned. "That's your reason? You decided not to go through with the plot because I may not like it? That is a horrible reason and it's never stopped you before. If my liking of your plans affected whether or not, you went through with them then you would not go through with anyone of your many plots."
"To say that you're not going to like them is quite the understatement." Godric said and tilted his head to the right.
"Understatement? How bad could it be? Godric, I- ", Salazar stopped in the middle of a sentence, thoughts were roaming his mind and for a brief moment there were so many that he couldn't separate them from each other. "I dare you to do it."
"You dare me?" Godric questioned while pointing at himself. "You dare me to go through with my plan despite the fact that I've told you that you won't like it; no correction you are going to hate my plan." Salazar nodded and Godric let out a loud laughter. "I'm not going to fall for it."
"Coward."
Godric squinted at Salazar whose smile grew. "You really want me to do it?"
"Yes."
"Are you one hundred percent sure?"
"Yes."
Godric laughed out loud and took one step towards him. Salazar could see the conflict within his eyes and knew in that moment that he had won. He didn't know what was going to happen nor when it was going to happen but at some point Godric was going to snap and he was going to do something; whatever he had planned. It was the combination of being dared and called a coward; Godric didn't like either.
"You think you want me to go through with my plan but you really don't- "Godric laughed again and took another step towards Salazar, he was standing in the middle of the hallway with equally many steps to Salazar as back to his side of the hallway. "You are not going to like it; in fact, you are going to hate it."
"Do it anyway."
Godric clenched his jaw. There was a moment when Salazar questioned if he wanted to know what Godric had planned. But then the man with the curly hair muttered a quiet fuck it and he crossed the hallway surprisingly quickly. The palm of his hands hit the cold stonewalls next to Salazar's head but the blond man was too occupied with other things to notice; like the way Godric's lips felt against his own and the way his warmth spread to Salazar when their bodies collided. Salazar's mind was for the first time too slow for his liking but his body on the other hand weren't. He reacted by kissing Godric back almost instantly. Once the curly haired man backed away Salazar groaned. Godric's hands were still resting on both side of his head and he had backed just far enough to separate their bodies from one another. Salazar breathed deeply and looked at him with wide eyes.
"I told you, didn't I?" Godric asked while breathing heavily. "I knew you weren't going to like it."
"I don't like it." Salazar replied without a trace of emotion on his face. "I loved it. This was a great plan." Then he grabbed Godric's collar, pulled him close, and kissed him again. Although it pained him to admit Salazar realised that Rowena and Helga had been right, Godric and he had something in common; they were despite their differences irrevocably and undeniably drawn to each other.
The end
