Title: Fun and Games

Author: Nacata

Rating: T for sexual situations and language.

Summary: A collection of one-shots prompted by jokes. (Because let's be honest; is there anything more appropriate than jokes where the Weasley Twins are concerned?) Fred/Angie, as usual. A little bit of angst, a little bit of fluff, and probably some heavy snogging sessions.

Chapter One: Breathing

Author's Note: I can't help myself. They're just so darn cute. Deathly Hallows, you suck. That's right. I'm talking to a book. I've been driven mad by grief. Read along, now.


A blonde goes into the beauty parlor with her walkman on her head.

"I need to take that walkman off your head," says the beautician.

"You can't! I'll die!" retorts the blonde.

"I can't cut your hair with the walkman on your ears!" says the beauty specialist as she's getting very annoyed.

"I said you can't take it off, or I'll die!"

The beauty specialist, outraged and frustrated, grabs the walkman and yanks it off the head of the blonde. Within seconds, the blonde dies. When the beautician picks up the walkman to listen, she hears it repeating "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in."

--

She remembered odd things about that day: the way the grass split beneath his body like it used to beneath his broom. The way the banners hovered seconds longer than the wind meant for them to. The ring on Katie Bell's tiny finger. The missing button on Fred's shirt. Just how high of a shriek Alicia could muster when George pinched her unexpectedly. It was the event itself that seemed blurry. It was Cedric Diggory's face that seemed fuzzy. His apparel that she couldn't remember, his voice that had slipped her mind, and she was frantic suddenly to keep every piece of him with her so that she might not lose him: might not let him slip away, but he was fading so quickly.

She remembered odd things about that funeral. Remembered the little lapse in Fred's skin where he'd sliced open his finger and had to have it stitched up again at age nine. She recalled the way his knee rested against hers with such an intense warmth that she could do nothing but concentrate on it throughout the ceremony so that she might refrain from crying. She remembered how all the tears ballooned inside of her lungs until she wasn't sure that she could breathe and then how after the ceremony in the hall Fred was breathing with her, breathing for her, breathing into her and kissing her so hard that she couldn't tell where his mouth started and hers stopped, where his tears began and hers ended.

She remembered a week later back at home when the tears ballooned again and there was no Fred to breathe for her so she crawled into her mother's bed late at night and Mrs. Johnson held her firmly against her body and stroked her hair as the room reverberated with her mourning. She remembered how hot the grief was in her throat and her chest, how it begged for escape from her slender body and how the dark consumed her sobs and hollowed them until she barely recognized the sound.

She remembered, "Mum…"

She remembered, "Honey, I know."

She remembered, "Angelina, baby, everything dies."

--

Fred Weasley was not everything.

--

But he was. To her he was everything and she wondered sometimes if she hadn't let him be, if he hadn't been everything to someone in this world, then he would've been nothing maybe, and nothing lived forever, right? And she wished that he were nothing or she was everything so that she might be dead too so he could hold her again while she sobbed because who's knee had rested against hers at his funerals no one's and the tears had just ballooned and swelled and engorged and there was no one there to breathe for her and she'd forgotten how to do it for herself and so--

So she just cried instead. Crawled back into mommy's bed and sobbed big fat heavy tears.

She remembered, "Mum…"

She remembered, "Angelina, baby, everything dies."

She remembered, "Mum, I can't remember how it works without him."

And she remembered, "Honey, you just keep breathing."

He'd even done that for her, though.


Author's Note: And there's your first one. Reviews make me giddy. And if you're looking for some Frangie goodness in a multi-chaptered fic, go check out Shackles. Angelina's chapter is presently in the works, but I promise they're a large part of that story. Purple button, please!