The Author: Imposed Love
Seamus Finnegan awoke on a bright Saturday morning. He rolled his head to crack to neck and stretched out his arms with a long groan. Unfortunately, this particular morning, his arm-stretching ritual was cut short by an abrupt meeting with a face. His eyes popping open, Seamus turn his head slowly to see—Dean Thomas. In close-up. In fact, so close that they were sharing a bed.
Dean Thomas likewise got a very nasty shock when he awoke. Perhaps more preferably, his shock was an arm in the face. However, things evened out when his eyes traveled back up the arm to see the arm's owner. Their eyes met, and both sat up very quickly, indeed. They threw off the covers and realized that—well… perhaps ridding themselves of the covers hadn't been the best plan.
"Good morning!" A voice chirped, and the discomfited pair realized that there was an unfamiliar woman with short brown hair and a leather satchel perched on the baseboard of the bed.
With two muffled "Eep!"s, Seamus and Dean pulled up the sheets again.
"What—wha—" seemed to be the extent of their verbal skills at the moment, so the unwelcome intruder filled them in bluntly.
"I'm from the Ministry of Authors," she informed them, "And you two have been selected by popular demand to be Altered."
Dean hopped out of the bed (Seamus admired his ability to do so without turning red) and began pulling on his jeans, his back to the others.
"What does this…Altering have to do with—" Seamus waved his hand around, unable to find a word suitable for describing the experience of waking up beside his dorm mate and longtime (just) friend.
A small smile was allowed to appear on the brisk woman's face for a moment. "You'd better get used to waking up beside Mr. Thomas," she said snippily, "because you'll be doing it for the rest of your life."
Dean turned back around and crossed his arms over his bare chest. "When was this decided?" he asked in a low, threatening voice. For some reason, Seamus shivered. The woman advanced until she could easily reach out and touch both of their faces.
"We measured the space between your eyebrows. You're totally compatible," she explained matter-of-factly.
"No one ever considered that we're compatible friends, did they?" Seamus grumbled, and the woman chuckled and waved her hands in front of their faces. Dean stepped back hurriedly.
"Don't be silly!" she chirped, "There are plenty of people who like to see you as friends. But they don't matter, since there are influential people who like to see man-on-man action."
"This is ridiculous," Dean ranted as he stormed out of their dorm room, "Hannah is going to be so pissed!"
Seamus felt a strange stir in his stomach. He wondered if a bouquet of flowers would soothe his long-time lover's ruffled feathers.
The woman pulled a clipboard out of her satchel and made two small checkmarks. Flipping a couple of pages and scanning down a list, she made a small star beside that word Romance and, after a moment's hesitation, beside the word Angst, as well.
A/N: For sake of regularity, I'm posting Chapters 2 and 3 in segments.
Reviews:
Andaisha: Yo! You're the only Assoc. to have read it except Megan, and it totally scared Megan. Apparently, she feels that Dumbledore doesn't deserve any sex drive. I totally agree.
Little Tigger, Silverthreads, and Mystic Moon6: Here ye be.