Title and chapter titles from "Neville" by MC Chris cause that's just the vibe right now

A series based on tumblr kiss prompts

Kiss Prompt: Weak, sweaty kisses because it's unbearably hot. I feel like the point of the kissing prompts was supposed to be "the kisses are sweet," not "the kisses are sweaty." Sorry if you weren't looking for fluff + gross realistic workplace kisses.

Julie feels like she somehow took a shower under her clothes, which should be a sign to the Powers That Be that the park needs to be closed today. If the employees can run a dry slip n slide with the sweat on their bodies alone, they shouldn't be working. But here she is.

As she staggers into the break area, she lets out a loud groan. Every single patch of shade has already been claimed by all the other employees who are working outside today, and there's nowhere cool left to stand.

"Jules!" Luke waves her over to his section of the wall. As she approaches, she realizes that his Butterbeer shirt, which is meant to be a light gray, is dark gray and clinging to him and—

Okay, she's not complaining about the clinging, per se, but he's incredibly gross right now.

He nods her into the slim patch of shade in front of him, pressing back against the wall to make room for her. On the one hand, the shade is a very welcome break from the aggressive midday sun. On the other hand, being squeezed into a tiny space next to her overheating boyfriend, who is currently transferring extra, unwanted sweat onto her, is… unpleasant, to say the least.

"You doing okay out there?" he asks, as if this whole situation isn't disgusting.

She nods at his shirt. "Are you?"

Hunching his shoulders, as if that will somehow hide his shirt from view, he chuckles bashfully. "Been out there so long I forgot this wasn't the original color."

Dragging her sleeve over her forehead, Julie transfers a slick of sweat to the fabric and… oh god. Luke eyes the damp stain sympathetically, and she shuffles the sleeve around, trying to hide the clear evidence of her current grossness from view. "Is this killing the magic?"

With a soft smile, he waves his pointer finger at her face. "Aguamenti." He pauses, like he's waiting for water to shoot out of his finger, then he bugs his eyes. "Crap, maybe the magic really is gone."

She smacks him gently on the arm, but she's honestly too weak for the smack to be anything more than a delicate brush of her hand. "How hot is it right now? I want to be accurate when I complain about this later."

He tugs his phone out of his apron pocket and pulls up the weather app. "Uh… it's 44 degrees."

"There's no way." She is basically a human candle, melting away on the cobblestones of Hogsmeade.

The corner of his mouth slips up into a sly grin. "44 Celsius."

She tries to smack him again. "That's, like, 110 degrees."

He turns the phone to her. "111, actually."

She's not sure if she actually starts crying, or if it's just more sweat leaking out of her scalp and trickling down her face. She's only on her first ten. How is she supposed to survive five more hours of this shift?

Then a notification pops up on Luke's screen. A very confusing notification. "'Six-month Anniversary?'"

In an instant, his phone is dropped back into his apron pocket. "Oh, that's just…"

"Our six-month isn't until January. You got something to tell me?"

He chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his neck, before yanking away his damp palm with a wrinkled up nose. "Uh, it's the six-month anniversary of the day we met."

"You know when that is?"

"I did the math one day cause I thought we could celebrate and it would be cute, and then Alex said it was weird and unnecessary, so I—"

"Set an alarm so you'd remember it?"

"That was just for me. I wanted to…" He studies his feet. Either he's blushing or it's the heat flush on his pale skin—she suspects both. "I dunno, I wanted to remember to think about half a year ago. Appreciate how amazing these six months have been, and—"

Dante and Fuego, who are standing on either side of Luke, clear their throats loudly, with an eerie synchronicity. Oh crap, they're crammed in so close that they're unable to do anything but listen to this conversation.

Six months ago, Julie would have ducked her head and stood awkwardly in silence for the remainder of her ten. But now? She's an expo god. Without pause, she grabs Luke's hand and starts pulling him toward her. Groaning weakly, he tries to keep his back against the wall. "Please don't make me go in the sun. I've got seven more minutes here."

"We're going inside."

She tugs him after her, dragging him through the employee entrance to the humid kitchen of the Three Brooms, past the prep cook stations and the dishwashing stations, all the way to…

"The walk-in?"

Julie yanks open the door to the walk-in fridge, unleashing a beautiful waft of cool air. Nick, currently swallowed in an oversized coat, hovers over two bins of strawberries, sorting the ripe ones. He jumps when they stumble in.

She could try to beat around the bush or be subtle about this, but they're on the clock. "Nick, can we sort the strawberries for seven minutes?" Julie asks.

Wrinkling his brow and gesturing at their uniforms, he asks, "Uh, aren't you on carts today?"

"Yeah. Can we sort the strawberries for seven minutes?" she repeats, adding more weight to her voice. When Nick continues to look blank, she waggles her eyebrows.

"Oh. Yeah, okay." Nick lets out a nervous giggle and practically Apparates out of the walk-in.

Taking advantage of the cold air in front of them, Luke spins gleefully into the walk-in, Sound of Music-style. But then he comes to an abrupt halt and groans. "I don't wanna sort strawberries. I'm on my break."

Julie tugs the door shut behind her and stalks toward him, raising an eyebrow. But he just shakes his head, continuing to look confused. So she pushes him gently but firmly against one of the metal shelves.

"Oh. Nice." He smirks down at her, like this was his idea all along.

With an exasperated huff, she brings her hands up to his cheeks. In her head, it's tender and romantic, but in reality, his slick skin almost slides her fingers right back off his face. On instinct, he wraps his arms around her, drawing her close. His body still radiates heat and sweat, but the fridge at least makes the proximity bearable.

"You were saying?" she asks, nodding vaguely in the direction of the break room.

A bashful grin quirks up his lips. "This is gonna be sappy, so prepare yourself."

"I'm prepared."

"Like, sweeter than Butterbeer."

"Careful, you're going to overhype it."

His bashful grin turns soft and he bumps his warm nose against hers. "I wanted to make sure I spent some of today thinking about the day we met cause six months ago, happiness got redefined for me. That's worth celebrating, I think."

And there's really only one reaction she can have to that. Julie pops onto her toes and tugs his face to hers, bringing their lips together. Her body trembles—less from the kiss and more from the sheer exhaustion running through her dehydrated body—and she almost recoils when sweat transfers from his mouth to hers. His hands press the damp fabric of her shirt into her back and, under the fridge air, it's cool and unpleasant. When his cheeks finally succeed in shaking off her hands, she moves them to his shoulders, feeling the unnatural heat of his skin and the slickness of his sweat through the fabric of his shirt.

Overall, it's an extremely gross kiss. And if it were with anyone else, she would be absolutely disgusted. But when they're chased out of the walk-in four minutes later by an indignant Harrison ("Haven't you people heard of health code violations?"), teeth chattering as the sweat freezes on their bodies, she can't keep the grin off her face.

Apparently the magic's not gone just yet.