When Victoire woke up the next day, it was just before 1.
This was far from the first time she'd woken up in Gallagher's bedroom, and it wasn't the first time she'd woken up next to him, either.
It was, however, the first time she'd woken up wearing nothing but her underwear. When she rolled over to look at him, his eyes were open. "Hey," she said softly, reaching out to run her fingers down his chest.
"Hey." His chest was trembling, and she realized after a moment that he was struggling to hold back a laugh.
"What?" she demanded, jerking back and looking down at herself. "Is there something -"
"No!" His hand settled on her back, and he pulled himself a little closer to her. "No, Vic, you - it's not - just, fuck, this escalated quickly."
"Do you regret it?" she asked, closing her eyes as he started to caress her side.
This time, he didn't even try to hold back his laugh. "Not even a little. I'm just - kind of still trying to make sense of it." His hand started to drift down, and a pleasant shiver went up her spine. "Do you want to get on top of me?"
"Yes, please."
He hadn't bothered to put on his boxers before they'd passed out a little before 5am, and feeling him through the single layer of fabric was quickly becoming maddening. "I'm done playing matchmaker for you, though, just in case that wasn't clear," he said lightly.
"Good. I don't need a matchmaker anymore." His eyes shot back up to meet hers, and something about his expression made her feel warm inside. "G, can you fuck me again?"
"Fuck, yes." She tumbled down to the bed and yanked off her underwear as he reached over to his nightstand. "How do you want me?"
There was a lurch in her stomach - something about verbalizing what they were doing was still strangely thrilling. "On top of me? If you don't mind?" She sucked in her breath as he slowly slid into her. "G - can you maybe like - go fast?"
"How fast?" He sounded strained.
"As fast as you can." She let her hands drop from his hips to her chest, and he groaned when she started to play with herself. "As hard as you can."
"Vic, if I fuck you as hard as I can, I don't think I'm going to last very long, especially not with you doing that. Fuck, you have no idea how sexy that is."
"So show me." The sensations she was giving herself and the expression in his eyes were rushing through her, and she realized that her hips had started to move against him without her being consciously aware of it. "I just - I want you to fuck me hard while I touch myself like this, and then after you finish, I want you to play with my clit until I come."
His voice was shaking when he said, "Yeah. I can do that." She wasn't sure how to describe the noise that came out of her when he started to thrust - she was quite certain she'd never made it before - but he stopped. "Fuck - I'm sorry -"
"That was a good noise," she gasped. "Please, please, G, don't stop -"
He was right. He didn't last very long, and once he'd finished and moved down to her clit, neither did she. It was frantic, sweaty, and very different from what they'd done the night before.
It was also something she wanted very much to do again.
When she got back to his room after they'd showered, she found him already reclining on his couch. He opened his eyes when he heard her and grinned. "Should I sit up properly and make room for you, or are you just going to get on top of me again?"
"Get on top of you again," she said, and he held out his arms. As soon as she'd lowered herself onto him, he pulled her shirt and bra down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw their tablets on the coffee table flash. They ignored them.
"You know that this is probably going to end in us fucking again, don't you?" He was quickly starting to get hard underneath her. She grinned at him, and he laughed. "Just saying."
Then the tablets flashed again, they both sighed. "We should get that," he said reluctantly, swinging his feet to the ground and leaning forward to grab both of them off the table as she bounced down to sit beside him.
It felt a little strange to be sitting here like this now when she'd spent some much of the previous three nights touching him. "G?" she asked he toggled his on. He looked at her, expression attentive. "I - would you mind if I leaned against you? It's okay if you would rather I not," she rushed to add as his arm snaked around her waist to pull her against him. She smiled as she leaned against him. "Thanks."
"No idea why you're thanking me," he said. "I'm not being altruistic. I - this feels nice."
They turned their attention to their tablets and immediately cursed.
'it's not technically against the rules'
(fred, vic)
12:50pm
fred: did you still want to study today?
1:15pm
fred: vic?
'not animated'
(fred, gdedworth, vic)
2:26pm
fred: hey, losers
fred: happy to cover for you
fred: but i'm not a fucking legilimens, fucking tell me when i need to
fred: vic and i were supposed to work on defense together at her place
fred: i made it out like vic had told me she'd be doing stuff there and i'd gotten here early
fred: but you need to get here asap
fred: and no, you do not have time to do whatever it is you're doing at this point one more time
fred: and it'd be obvious anyway
fred: vic, your mum opened the floo, so if g's coming, he should be able to get in okay
Victoire scrambled off the couch and started to stuff the previous day's clothes into her bag, thanking her lucky stars that she'd thought to bring the significantly more lowkey leggings and tunic-sweater she was wearing now and hadn't thought to grab make-up. "Do you want to come?" she asked when Gallagher tossed her skirt over. "You still have your Defense assignments to do, too, right?" His face was starting to get red, and she added, "What, G, are you planning to just avoid seeing our friends ever again? And Fred knows."
"Exactly," he said. "And Fred's going to be such a dick about it."
"Oh, come on, go leave a note for your dad and rip the bandaid off," she said impatiently, running her wand along her hair to try to dry it a little more. A shower was one thing; a shower an hour before the arrival time Fred had given her mother was something else entirely.
"You know, sometimes I think the sorting hat got you and Fred mixed up," he shot back. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned. "I mean, you're not wrong - you're just annoying."
Five minutes later saw them standing in front of the floo again. He leaned down to kiss her. "Vic - I don't care if Fred knows - he knows pretty much all of it, anyway - but can we maybe not tell anyone else right now? It's not you - at all! - I just… don't really want to have to deal with the sixth year gossip mill and knowing looks every time people see us together."
The prospect of having the other girls in her dormitory approaching her with even a small fraction of the excitement and nosiness they'd had every time one of them had started 'dating' someone was vaguely terrifying. "Yeah," she said. "I know what you mean. I - I'm good with that. You don't mean not doing it at all, right?"
"No!" he exclaimed. "No, just -"
She nodded quickly. "I - I was just double checking. That's all." She grabbed a pinch of floo powder and stepped into the fire.
When she stumbled out on the other side, she found Fred chatting with her mother at the kitchen table. "Hi, Vic," her mother said as Fred twisted around in chair. "Are you feeling any better? Do you want tea before you start studying?"
Victoire was very certain that Gallagher would have much preferred that they not sit and chat with her mother just then, but there wasn't really a graceful way to say no.
When she finally closed her bedroom door behind them forty minutes later, she turned to Fred. Thankfully, he looked more amused than irritated. "You probably got away with it this time, but you're so bad at this," he said cheerfully. She grabbed her books off her bed - she hadn't bothered to clear it off before leaving the night before - and they settled on the floor.
She realized very quickly that she had no idea whether Gallagher's answer about leaning on him on the couch still held true around other people. She glanced at him, met his eyes, and then looked back down again.
After they'd repeated the process once, Fred blew out an exasperated breath. "For fuck's sake, I've got a pretty decent idea of what you've both been doing for the past three nights - you don't need to pretend I don't. The intentionally-not-touching thing you're doing right now is so much more awkward than just sitting together in the first place."
Victoire glanced over at their friend. He shrugged and reached out his hand, and she edged over to him. To her surprise, Fred refrained from making any jokes at their expense for the entire two and a half hours Gallagher was there or when Victoire bid him a very enthusiastic goodbye. As soon as she closed her bedroom door, though, Fred tossed his quill down and sat back, studying her. "Yeah," he said. "So I didn't want to say anything else about it in front of him in case I hit a nerve by accident, but I'm going to need you to clear some stuff up for me, because that clearly escalated real quick."
She winced and settled back onto the floor. "Er - what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Stop it, Vic."
She sighed. "Fine. I don't know, Fred! For the record, I was telling you the truth last night - I'd've told you if I'd had plans with him, and he said in the morning that he wasn't going to be available at all. I just wasn't up to the whole family. But then G got out of staying at his grandparents' really last minute and messaged me, so… I went over there."
"I'm afraid to even ask, but what the fuck have you two been doing? Two and a half days ago he was still talking about matchmaking, and now he can't stop staring at you."
She felt her face get hot. "Wait, really?"
Her cousin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Vic, really. What the fuck have you two been doing?"
Her face was getting even redder. "Well - I mean - how much detail do you want?" His eyebrows flew up, and she added, "No, not like - oh, fine. I mean, two nights ago, we kind of - did what we did the night before, but - er - with less clothes."
"Yes, I know. You told me that part. What happened last night?"
"Well... last night - um - well -"
Fred had started to laugh. "To repeat my question after you got home the first time: did you fuck him?"
Victoire wasn't sure how it was possible to be both embarrassed and unable to hide a smile at the same time, but there it was. "Yes. Er - multiple times."
"Yeah, that's always how it goes, I think. Jules and I did it twice our first time, and we weren't even in a bedroom." He studied her. "Not to get all Aunt Fleur on you, but you guys used -" She nodded quickly, and he blew out his breath. "Holy shit, that escalated quickly. I don't know why I'm surprised - patience is not your strong suit." He hesitated, and then added, "Not to bring up a sore point or anything, but - I mean, where are you with Teddy? You've been thinking about him nonstop for months, and you got confirmation two nights ago that he is into you. I'm not judging, seriously - I just want to know."
Victoire sighed and looked down at the plushy rug they were sitting on. The stars blinking in and out of the dark blue were starting to slow down - the charm probably needed to be renewed again. "I guess I just…" She trailed off. "I mean, great, he feels that way, but he also was talking about waiting until the summer because one year isn't 'that bad,' and how much he doesn't like that I'm still in school, and…" She looked up at her cousin. "I guess all the mixed signals and complications just stopped feeling quite so worth it when I realized that there was someone else I actually really kind of like who's really upfront about kind of liking me. Like… G just likes me, you know? He's not analyzing how much discomfort he's willing to put up with to - do whatever with me. And it's really nice." She hesitated. "Am I a bad person?"
"Of course not, Vic. Preferring the guy whose 'I like you' isn't immediately followed by concerns and internal conflict makes sense, and a mutual crush that hasn't even been acknowledged isn't any kind of commitment - sooner or later, people are going to move on."
She let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Fred."
"So - guessing I was right about that crush?" She nodded. "Ha. I mean, horribly slow on the uptake, but at least I was quicker than anyone else." He caught the pillow she threw at him. "I've been a really nice and supportive cousin about this, so now you're going to listen to me wax poetic about my girlfriend for awhile."
She laughed. "You were going to do that anyway!"
"But now you'll feel guilty if you make fun of me. Hey!"
She'd tossed another pillow at him.
heart :)
(gdedworth, vic)
9:03pm
gdedworth: hey, just wanted to clarify
gdedworth: me doing this isn't contingent on not telling people
gdedworth : if you're uncomfortable hiding it, we don't have to
gdedworth: i don't want you to feel like i'm ashamed of it or anything
vic: contingent, huh?
vic: get your dick in a ravenclaw a few times and suddenly you're a scholar
gdedworth: imagine what'll happen when it's more than a few times
vic: i mean
vic: i'd prefer to just find out
gdedworth: that too
vic: but no - i get it
vic: and i actually kind of agree
vic: besides, then we get to keep having sleepovers
gdedworth: ohh, good point
gdedworth: i realized today that i like waking up naked in bed with you
vic: you played it really cool
vic: i couldn't tell you were into it at all
gdedworth: HA
gdedworth: have to go - that was just bugging me
gdedworth: and i wanted to make sure you knew
vic: thanks, g.
gdedworth: again, not altruism
gdedworth: night!
vic: night!
a/n: thanks so much for your patience! i work in + go to school for public health, and i had some pandemic-related burnout last month. i'll be back on a regular update schedule now, with this being updated every friday from now on. tysm for reading, reviews/faves are super super appreciated.
i hope you're all staying safe in these turbulent times.
- branwen