Notes, disclaimers, etc: Not mine. *bursts into tears* They're not mine, I swear! But the plot is. So don't steal. Aight?
Sorry this took so long. As soon as my betas return it I'll post chapter 8. Thanks to my betas, Joy Drop and Saheen, btw. Ya'll rock.
Okay. Um. This chapter contains… slash. I think that's it. Man, that kind of sucks. LOL.
Chapter 7: The Way to Growing Up
Remember the first day you fell in love with me?
We sit in silence, Lee between us. Lee hums nervously to himself, glancing between us with a half-smile, waiting for us to tell him that it's a joke. No, we're not really fighting. Not really after all just sort-of and it's all my fault, anyway, it is. Not that he would know that. Not that he could.
So we sit in silence and his hand taps a nerve-wracked rhythm on his knee. I reach over and grab his hand, glaring silently. He offers me a troubled glance, then turns away.
Lee, who I have reached over, looks between us again then gets up and says, "I'm going to… go. Yeah. Be back. Yeah." He rushes off.
We watch him go. Finally, in a small voice, a sad voice, he says, "George…"
I look at him. He immediately looks away. "Yeah?" I say, urging him onwards.
"I…" He hesitates. I'm losing him. He was going to tell me something, I know he was, something important, that might solve this problem. Solve us. He shakes his head.
"No, what?" I pressure and I try to catch his eye, I try to read his thoughts. He was never so good at building walls as he is now. I reach out with my mind, feel like I am metaphorically smashed against something, something raw and unpolished and splintered. It scrapes against me and I almost wince in literal pain.
"Jesus. Nothing." He says sharply.
We are drawing curious looks from the few others in the compartment. The Weasley twins don't fight. The Weasley twins never fight. Ha, got you know, pulled the fucking wool over your eyes; we're fighting. We fight. Who the fuck is laughing now?
"Fine," I hiss, sitting back in my chair. If he is going to be like this, if he is going to push me away, I am tired of fighting it. It doesn't matter anymore, if it ever did, we must have lost something on the way to growing up, we must have lost each other. Something I never thought we could do.
I stand up, fighting myself as I do so; in reality I don't think this is how it has to be. I try to stiffen my mouth and my eyes and my heart and I try to walk away from the one person I promised myself I would never leave, would never have to leave.
He grabs my arm. He knows what I am doing. He has seen that I don't want to do it.
His voice is low and gritty and wrecked. His nails dig into my forearm. Quietly, painfully, "I don't want to lose you."
I yank my arm away. "Then don't." I mumble back and walk past him, away from him, away from everything.
I pass Lee in the hallway. He gives me an odd look, then shrugs a little. I try to smile and keep walking.
His voice calls me back. "George?"
"Yeah?"
He hesitates, then, "He doesn't know what he's doing."
I shrug. "It doesn't matter," I tell him. "Really, it doesn't."
He knows I'm lying, but he leaves me alone, and vanishes into the compartment.