His head was resting against her chest, arms wrapped around her waist. Her fingers were gently stroking his hair and Scorp's heart was doing this weird thing where it was… settled.

There wasn't another word to describe it.

Like slipping into fresh pyjamas after a long hot shower, skin soft and tingling at the same time, eyes heavy with sleep. Like every single piece of the universe had clicked together and made sense all at once, precariously held together by the bundle of red curls he was holding in his arms.

She was rubbing off on him, it was the only explanation. The second he let go of her, it'd be over and everything would come toppling down.

"Merlin, I'm happy," Rose said, fidgeting in his arms. "And starving. I think there's still crumble, I'm going to go –"

"No."

The apprehensive hold tightened around her.

Was it too much to ask? For it to just… be.

"I'll be back in a jiff. I promise."

She fobbed him off with a small smile on her face and scampered over to the door of the bedroom, a spring on her step. Just when his heart was starting to beat melancholy, she stopped, looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.

The gloom bounced right off.

Sweet Merlin, what in the world was happening here?

She hovered at the door for a second, tilting her head to look at him and biting her lower lip. "Want to come with?"

He stared back at her for a second. "To the kitchen?"

It sounded inane, but he did. Want to, that is.

"Yes." Rose skipped back to bed and let herself fall back into the sea of sheets next to him, bed bouncing with mirth at having her back. "No?"

His fingers tugged at her waist, making a feeble attempt to reel her back in.

"Yes." This couldn't be real. It just couldn't. "But we need to talk about this."

"Oh, no, Mr Bad News," she said, evading his fingers and pressing a rogue kiss on his face before jumping right off the bed again. "You're not ruining this for me."

She was like a toddler, brimming with energy, skipping over to extract a clearly male robe from her wardrobe.

"But…"

"Nope." She sat down on the edge of the bed next to him and leaned in to give him yet another kiss, like she was full of them and it was clearance day. "I'm terribly happy right now and I'm starving, which means I'm going to bake."

His nose scrunched. "More crumble?"

"Chocolate, actually."

"Chocolate's nice." One of his hands played with the belt of her robe. "But we should talk."

"Nope," she said, leaning in to press a kiss on his cheek. "No talking, just chocolate. And more kissing, maybe."

She let out a small delighted squeal when his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush against him. She kissed him again, her fingers gently raking at his hair before she braced herself on his chest, smile gone from her face.

"You need to ignore what I said before," Rose said, pressing her forehead lightly against his. "The whole… 'I maybe love you' thing. It was unfair considering you're trapped in here with me for the foreseeable future."

He stared vacantly back. "Unfair. In what world can you fancying me be construed as 'unfair'?"

"This one." She nodded gravely. "It's an impossible situation for you. You're a forced guest at least until the roads are open again which means you're technically under duress and everything out of your mouth is therefore inadmissible."

"Inadmissible? Duress?" Scorp's laugh was brittle. "I'm under a lot of things, foremost of them being you," he said, hand gently stroking her thigh, "but duress isn't one of them."

"Isn't it?" She smiled for a second, only for her to shake herself. "No. We're not getting into this. I refuse to." She struggled and shimmied herself away from his arms, skittering from the bed and toward the door again. "You coming?"

The answer to that was a resounding 'yes'.

Oh, sweet, blissful ignorance and meaningless conversation. Scorp had apparently caught up with the program and was indulging the chit chat, which she thoroughly appreciated.

"What's up with all the classics collecting dust?" Scorp asked, pointing a chocolatey spoon toward a nearby shelf. "Have you read them all?"

Rose sniggered, placing a bowl with ice-cream in front of them. "Yes." She tilted her head at the shelf and sighed. "I'll read anything once and I do love them from a literary standpoint, but I refuse to read Dostoiévski again."

His forehead furrowed. "Why not? I love Dostoiévski. Crime and Punishment is beautiful."

"Of course you would, it's the most depressing thing ever written," she said with a shrug, scooping a spoonful of ice-cream. "Much like your column, it should be called Doom and Gloom."

"Everything the man writes is a masterpiece. He pinned down human suffering and wrestled it into words, how do you not like it?!"

Rose snorted. "I do like it. But it made me feel like a tattered rag for the entire week I was reading it."

"That's the whole point!"

He looked frankly indignant and Rose let out a laugh. "Ah," she said wryly, "but I don't like feeling like a tattered rag. And most of the time, I just choose not to."

Her entire life was just a bundle of repression, wasn't it?

"Is that why we're not talking about it?"

Ice-cream went down the wrong pipe and she choked, coughing until she thought a lung might pop out. His hand was at her back, doing that inane patting thing people do but that didn't really help at all and it took her a full twenty seconds to pick herself together.

"Was that a 'yes'? I feel like that was a 'yes'." Scorp shook his head, looking a thousand shades of incredulous. "Do you think chatting about us will make you sad?"

She shrugged, letting out a final cough. "I don't feel like it will. But you do have a knack for making Good News go Bad."

"Are we Good News?"

Her smile faltered momentarily. "Aren't we?"

"All Good News are just Bad News in the making," he said, resting his cheek on his hand. "It's one of life's inevitabilities."

"Some Good News even you can't ruin."

He let out a laugh. "I'll bet you a fiver I can."

"Probably." She reached out to brush a strand of the blond hair falling on his eyes. "What I don't get is why you'd want to."

Not when it was perfect as it could be. You didn't mess with this sort of wholesomeness.

"I don't, but statistically I will."

"I wouldn't let you." She leaned in, bare skin against his, arms sliding around his waist. She pressed a small kiss on his shoulder before resting her chin on it. "You're far too pessimistic for your own good."

"You're far too optimistic for my own good." He put his head to hers and scowled. "You don't really think this would work, do you?"

"I didn't want to presume there was a 'this'," Rose said softly, arms slackening before she let go of him. After a few seconds, she asked, "Is there a 'this' on your end?"

"Yes."

"Duress," she pointed out.

"I thought you said there would be no rhyming in this house."

They stared at each other for a second and Rose couldn't help a smile. "Accidental rhyming doesn't count."

Scorp chuckled. "Like involuntary manslaughter doesn't?"

"It's involuntary."

"The end result is still someone ends up dead. Or, in this case, egregious rhymes running rampant." His hand cupped the back of her neck and he placed his lips on her neck. "And since the debauchery levels are already gargantuan at this point -"

He didn't get to end the sentence because she was far too busy kissing him.

In the end she ducked all meaningful conversation with the word 'duress' or something equivalent. 'Coercion' was thrown around some, same as 'imprisonment' as well as some facetious similes about 'hosts' and 'guests' and how one wouldn't 'criticise terrible canapés at a dinner party'.

Some seriousness slipped through the cracks, mostly in the quiet of the night, when he was holding her in his arms. Unhappiness didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of actually surviving in this hostile environment of kissing and skin-to-skin.

"All evidence to the contrary," she whispered, "we do get along."

Tentative honesty cleaving its way to their hearts. Nothing but pillow talk, but pillow talk was better than no talk at all.

"Everyone gets along at first," he said airily. "It's called the honeymoon stage."

"We're not everyone," she pointed out. "I'm me. You're you." She leaned on her shoulder and frowned at him briefly. "Is this just you being a Debbie Downer or should I feel concerned?"

She was saying it lightly, as a joke, but it was an exceptionally sensible question.

"How are you not? How do you look at me and think 'yes, this is It'?"

"I didn't know you wanted to be It," she said, frowning slightly. "Do you want to be It?"

Yes. Now that she'd asked it, the answer to that question was 'yes'.

Anything else was just a barbarous display of ineptitude.

"I'm just a notch then?" he asked, burying his nose in her neck and kissing a stray freckle. "A passing ship in the night that'll leave even more shirts in your closet that you won't get rid of for some misguided reason?"

She stared at him blankly. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"You think you're a notch?" Rose blinked. "Last I checked I wasn't the one shagging people against my desk."

"Dare I point out that you're the one avoiding The Talk like it's the plague?"

He felt the rightness in his bones. He knew she loved him, same as he knew he'd never let her go if he was given the chance.

Her avoidance, however, felt like Bad News, a perverse twist on some terribly Good News that, at this rate, might never see the light.

For the first time, Scorp wasn't amused at the prospect.

"You're not just a notch," she said quietly, hand digging into his hair and stroking gently it in that affectionate sort of way that made him feel… loved.

Again and again.

"You're not a notch either," he said. "Not in any version of this story. Not the initial draft, not the first revision, not alpha, not beta, not the first edition."

"I'm not?" She threw him a sideglance. "I mean, you are trapped with me, it's not like you could say it was even if I was."

Scorp scowled. "You're not a just notch."

"Again," Rose said, letting out a laugh, "it's not like you could say I am. You're essentially trapped. You have to look at my face at least until -"

"You're not a notch!" Scorp sighed and raised his eyes heavenward. "You're… you ."

She ignored him, frowning as he placed butterfly kisses all over her face. "I mean, I'd get it if I were. And while I did say something that was far too much-"

That she loved him.

"- you don't need to feel like you owe me something. We're friends and that's not going away. We can still -"

"Did you mean it, though?"

Scorp's heart shuddered as she buried her arms around his waist and whispered. "Yes."

"Good." He held her tight, arms and legs entangled closer than was necessarily comfortable. "Because I feel the same. And it'd be a bugger if you didn't."

"Duresse."

"Bugger off," he said quietly. "You know I do love you." After a few seconds of silence, he added, "Don't you?"

Hair flailing madly as she nodded into his chest. "I don't know, but I know. Does that make sense?"

Scorp nodded back: nothing else had ever made as much sense.

The storm blew over like they knew it would. Magic returned and with it freedom.

Unwanted freedom. Freedom that was far too scary.

She really needed to call her therapist.

Rose hovered by the fireplace as Scorp picked up his bag and swung it over his shoulder.

"It was great having you over," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You're an excellent guest."

"Even if I poked fun at your spoons?"

There was a vice in her chest as his hand traced over her back and up to her neck.

Rose swallowed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath that smelled like… him. "Even then."

Maybe she could hold the memory forever. Maybe in ten years, she'd still remember how this felt, warm and safe and everything that love should feel like.

"Rose?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I come back?"

She looked up at him and met the ever-present scowl. "What?"

"I'm thrilled that I'm going home." He sniggered. "I need clothes that actually fit. And pyjamas. But -"

But. That 'but' was sounding incredibly promising.

"- I was wondering if maybe…"

"Yes," she said breathlessly. "Just… yes."

His mouth was on hers again and the whole leaving process was delayed for a while. Even as he stepped out into the fireplace, hair now dishevelled and lips almost raw from all the kissing, Rose clung to the feeling of knowing.

There was a sort of dazed determination to the way she strode into her bedroom and started pulling clothes from the wardrobe, tossing them into dark bags that had a one-way ticket into oblivion.

She was barely halfway through when she heard steps ringing in the living room.

"Honey, I'm home."

If anything, the biting sarcasm to the words only made her happier - that and the fact that he had an armful of shirts in his arms and a toothbrush in one hand.

"You two are in a relationship," Eddie repeated, a slight frown on his face. "You two? A relationship?"

Eddie's eyebrows shot upwards as he took them both in and Scorp fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. Rose's foot gave his a nudge and when he looked over at her, she gave him a smile.

"Yes," she said, nodding gravely. "Serious business."

"We're getting a cat together, it's absolutely revolting."

"Cats," she corrected with an eyebrow raise. "Plural."

It was a topic of heated debate. Scorp claimed one was enough, but she was sure that whatever cat they'd get would like him better so she figured they should get two, one for each.

Maximise the kitty love potential.

"The House of Lords still needs to approve that and I know they'll side with me because I'm a man and they're all sexist buggers." Scorp sniggered, relaxing under her touch as her hand settled on his knee. "I still maintain no cat in its right mind would choose me over you."

"Are you mental?! You're a sourpuss, it's in the word! You'll be like catnip to them! You -"

"You're living together?" Eddie interrupted, an eyebrow raised. "Since when?"

"Six months maybe?"

He threw an inquiring look at Rose and she shook her head. "Seven."

"Seven months," he said, nodding as circumspectly as she had. "Obviously seven."

Rose rolled her eyes. "You keep forgetting."

"I'm sorry if I'm too busy living our co-dependent relationship to keep track of it." He gave her hand a challenging tug. "For the record, it feels like it's been years."

Anger clawed at her chest. "Oh, really?! Maybe -"

"I meant that in a good way, you bint."

"You two are giving me a headache." Eddie rubbed his fingers against the creases in his forehead. "Are you sure you're not pulling my leg? Because if this is a lark it's in very poor taste."

Rose threw an inquiring look at Scorp - he was the one who'd claimed it was better they'd wait. She'd find him scowling at her every so often and he'd inevitably say something caustic on the lines of 'how are you still here?', which had led to a few hefty strops in the first few months.

Upon further inquiry, it seemed he didn't mean it as a bad thing. He was apparently convinced she'd wake up one day and realise he was Bad News.

Which was of course rubbish because she knew he was Good News.

Scorp snorted. "No, Eddie, I'm here begging you for a Consensual Relationship Agreement because I had nothing better to do with my lunch hour."

"That's Debbie Downer's way of saying 'yes, we're sure' and 'no, it's not a joke'."

"It is funny, but sadly there's no discernible punchline."

His fingers found hers under the table and gave them a small tug. Under the whole caustic, insufferable smile he was giving her, there was something soft and warm and just hers.

He wasn't just Good News, he was Excellent News.

The very best she'd ever gotten.

The door to his office flung open and Scorp met the storming face of his… girlfriend. Who happened to be terribly gorgeous even when she was in a murderous strop - perhaps even more so.

"And another thing," she screamed, banging the door shut behind her. "Next time you decide to leave your dishes unwashed at least give me a heads-up!"

Oh boy.

Scorp scoffed, getting up to his feet and sitting on the very edge of his desk. "Really?"

"Really!"

Whatever was bugging her still hadn't come out yet. So far it was just an irrelevant stream of domestic complaints about socks and replacing the toilet paper.

She huffed off and Scorp poured a packet of instant coffee into two mugs. By the time she was back, he had one ready for her and one for him.

"And-"

"Another thing?" he asked with a smile, holding out the coffee to her.

"Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy," she stuttered, eyes flickering between the coffee and his face. "If you presume to think coffee will miraculously -"

"Oh, I don't."

At the very least, it threw her for a loop, which was immensely amusing.

To him, anyway.

Scorp rolled his eyes and walked over to her, gently placing her hands around the coffee mug. "What did I really do?"

There had been no obnoxious 'good morning, sunshine' when she'd woken up. Instead, she'd rolled away from him in bed and pretty much stampeded all over the flat like she had a grudge to settle with the floorboards.

If anything, she'd already woken up stroppy, which was insane.

"Did I say something stupid in my sleep? Because I reserve myself the right to say inane things when I'm sleeping."

"No! You-" she struggled to find the words, mechanically taking the proffered mug and glaring at it. "I-"

Scorp's mouth curled upwards. "What did I do?"

His hand brushed her curls back and her lower lip trembled, her voice becoming very small. "You cheated on me."

"I what?"

Well, this was terrible. Tragic, really. They needed to call Fletcher in, the wanker would be thrilled to hear.

"With Daphne from Opinion," she continued quietly. "In Barcelona. In front of the Sagrada Familia, which I find very distasteful because there were children watching."

"Well, this is all news to me." Scorp scowled, taking her mug from her hands and setting it down. "But I can see why you'd be terribly upset." His arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her to him until she was nestled comfortably in his arms. "What an arsehole."

"No, you're not."

Scorp kissed the corner of her mouth and put his forehead to hers.

"Dream Scorp?" She nodded and he scoffed. "Yes, Dream Scorp's a dick."

She let out a bitter chuckle. "You looked happy."

There it was. It wasn't about the dream or the cheating or the Daphne from Opinion.

"I am terribly happy," he protested, hand pulling the knot on her hair undone. "Just not with her."

"You are?" Rose's hand tugged at the back of his shirt. "What about that rubbish about consistent emotions -"

He sniggered. "I am consistently happy."

"Even when I give you rot about your socks?"

Again with the very small voice.

"You don't give me rot about my socks." Scorp chuckled. "Not on the regular anyway."

She let out a huff. "Maybe I should."

"Maybe you should," he agreed. "But then I'd have to start complaining about the surplus of cake. I've gained at least three pounds since I moved in."

Rose sniffed into his chest. "Nobody's forcing you to eat it. And I like baking."

In the end, he didn't want her to stop. Her baking was a terribly accurate mood predictor, crumble for sad, chocolate for happy.

The other day she'd popped out some carrot cupcakes and he was still trying to sort that one out.

Whatever it was, he was almost sure it was Good News.

A/N: Simply revolting. ❤️ Also slightly shorter than I'd predicted. I might add some more to it when I'm in a Mood™️ but until then this is what came out. I'm going back to writing Witch Slap and watching GG and apparently at some point watching the seasons three (and four, omg?!) of The Crown!

As ever thank you Fangalitious, Butterflies765, ArcoIris, nobodysperfect2133, tulipfields, Guest (❤️, whoever you are), Pillarofdoom, fearinourminds and youveforgotten, y'all are perfect and I love your faces!

Lemme know what you thought! Love y'all, hope you're happy and safe and have a great one! ❤️