pearjuice
Member
code by birth of venus.
Story my dumping grounds for the things i write < 3
- Thread starter pearjuice
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pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: agr
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: agr
NAMELESS STORY
part 1/?
DURMSTRANG, 3RD CHALLENGE
________________________________________________________________
It was a rather dreadful Tuesday afternoon for Clara, but this was always the case when she was at school. This was only made worse by the fact that her peers weren’t happy about her having made friends. It came as a surprise that any of the competitors would like her enough to keep her around, but it was a pleasant surprise that they would also throw down for her.
The comments that came from her classmates were never ending. They called her Silver Tongue for her sly comments and easily believable lies (yet they called Cosmo the Silver Spoon, and didn’t seem to have a problem with him pretending to be a purist). They openly mocked her and took any opportunities their way to make her life harder. Clara wasn’t a girl who was easy to pick on, but Cosmo’s playing along with it only encouraged the mean encounters to multiply. When she came back as a Champion of the Triwizard Tournament instead of Cosmo, it was clear people were upset about it.
This was only saved by her peers who not only defended her, but went out of their way to do so. Clara knew she should feel touched that she finally had people who cared enough about her to have her back, or that she finally had the closest things to friends that she’d ever get. But when she walked into class and was greeted with a chorus of “Hey Clara!” that was far too cheery to be the gathered group of five just happy to see her, it rubbed her the wrong way.
She slumped into her regular desk in front of Ricky, who sat in between Cosmo and Gavy. Raphael sat behind Gavy, while Kiara sat beside Clara. The moody teenager ignored the way she could feel her friends staring holes into her and occupied herself with pulling her parchment and quill out of her bag.
THWAP
That was, until something sticky hit her in the shoulder.
She paused, confused by the fact that this laughter was coming from her real friends instead of the ones she once held close to her heart years ago.
“Sorry Clara, Ricky’s got bad aim.” Cosmo pretended to apologize.
“I do not!” Ricky insisted.
She turned to look at the boys, mostly relieved that their humor wasn't found in it having hit her with the goal of hurting her. Just below her peripheral she saw something the color of pink. Clara decided to count her blessings instead of snap at her friends, but made her annoyance visible as her hand moved to peel off whatever the colorful gunk was sitting on her shoulder.
“Here, I got it.” Kiara offered, and Clara let her.
Her friend’s small hand made quick work of removing the mystery item. She was just leaning back into her seat when Clara realized she recognized the thing in her hand. Her pale fingers snatched the toy out of Kiara’s, and she whipped her head around to glare at her brother and ex best friend.
“This? Again?” She snapped. The two boys relished in her glare and had the audacity to giggle like schoolgirls.
The item in question was nothing other than the stupid muggle toy that Clara thought she’d never have to see again after she and Ricky stopped being friends. A long gel string attached to a small replica of a hand that had the ability to stick to practically any smooth surface it came into contact with. The one in her hand was bright pink, but the plastic bag of what had to be at least thirty more was a variety of colors.
Back when the twins and Ricky were closer than they were in present day, Ricky introduced Clara and Cosmo to plenty of muggle toys and games. There were the things that everyone enjoyed, such as the spinning tops and punching balloons, and the ones that Cosmo hated, like the Chinese finger trap.
But there was just one that riled Clara up like nothing else anywhere could. And that was the stupid sticky hand toy.
She had never figured out how to aim them properly despite being skilled at anything else that required precision, which amused the two boys to no end. For weeks they would follow Clara around, flinging the toy at the back of her head or at whatever was in her hands to make her drop it. It got bad enough that they were banned in the Winter Manor due to when Clara reached her breaking point; when Cosmo brought over his first boyfriend, she had hidden a bunch of squeaky rubber chickens between his mattress and the wall, resulting in a mortified couple and Clara laughing so hard she thought she broke a rib.
But now they were back, and to make matters worse they had dragged her other friends into it. Raphael and Gavy were playing with blue and purple ones, and Kiara next to her had a yellow one that she was trying to tie to another pink one.
“You make it sound worse than it was.” Ricky pointed out with a barely suppressed grin. “But if you really want no part in this, we’ll leave you alone.”
“Yeah right,” Clara snapped, her eyes dropping down to the bag and back up to her brother and his friend. “Do you take me for a fool? I’ll risk detention if it means snapping your-”
“- Clara and detention? Those are two words I’ve never heard together.”
The pleasant and barely there sarcastic drawl in their professor’s voice caused the six students to turn in their seats to the door as the familiar figure of Cha-Cha strode into his classroom, stopping in front of his desk and leaning back on the edge, his two hands resting behind his hips to keep himself propped up.
“Especially since we’ve arrived at Durmstrang.”
Seeing as his joke was more on the nose than usual, Clara heard her friends chuckle. She clenched her jaw, and held up the sticky toy hand for her professor to see.
“Is that-?” Cha-Cha raised a hand, open palmed, but before Clara could stand up to hand it to him, a blur of green plummeted towards him from behind her.
THWAP
Cha-Cha caught it with ease.
He brought it closer to his face, and an expression of recognition graced his almost feminine features. “Wow, I haven’t played with one of these in forever!”
Clara didn’t have to turn in her seat to know that Cosmo and Ricky were grinning ear to ear. Her annoyance was always enough to bring joy to her professor, but it only grew when he realized it was his own student who brought in the stupid muggle invention.
“I know right? Easy toys to forget about. Clara here hates them.”
To her horror, his smile grew from his default and perfectly poised cheery one to one that Clara knew too well; mirth grew in his eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched in the way that always spelled trouble for her.
“Is that so?” He mused thoughtfully, looking back up from the one in his hand to the large bag of additional toys Cosmo held up.
“Don’t let them distract class and you can keep them.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed. Cha-Cha’s smile grew.
Last edited:
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha and vasu created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: agr
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha and vasu created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: agr
NAMELESS STORY
part 2/?
DURMSTRANG, 3RD CHALLENGE
_____________________________________
By the time it was Thursday, her favorite class had turned into a warzone.
It didn’t take long for Cha-Cha to realize just how disproportionately irate those stupid sticky hands made Clara and use it against her. Legilimency had turned into hell. He had taken it upon himself to order plenty of sticky hands for the entire class. If someone had a question? They had to fling their toy hand to the front of the class and make it stick on the whiteboard. It was not acceptable for Clara to simply toss hers, which meant she got laughed at every damn time she needed to ask something - likely why Cha-Cha had made that a rule. If Clara got a question wrong? Whoever got it right got to fling their hand at her. It was quickly becoming clear that Clara was outnumbered by those who had taken to having at least okay aim with those forsaken toys.
Which was everyone except Clara.
It didn’t stop outside of class either. She wasn’t under the impression that her professor hated her until then, but the sticky hand torture followed her all around the castle. Gavy and Raphael had made it a game to see who could shoot more hands into Clara’s bag without her noticing; Kiara had begun offering her dorm as a safe place for the hands to be stashed because Clara repeatedly threw Cosmo’s stash away when she found more bags of them; Ricky had begun tying the hands to all of her bags so damn tight she had to cut them off until only small parts of gel stuck to the straps of her purses and bags.
Clara knew her frustrations were only feeding into their fun, but her anger was real. She hated those horrible toys. They were so annoying. She was tired of stuff getting knocked out of her hands or things in front of her being shoved over.
She had been relieved when Cha-Cha announced that next Monday the hands would no longer be allowed, but she should have known her abuse wouldn’t just end right there. With Cha-Cha there was always a catch, and the hurdles she jumped through to keep him as her teacher sometimes felt never-ending.
Classes had just ended for the day, which meant that her one on one lesson with Cha-Cha was to begin. Sometimes they did their lessons at different times, but sometimes it was easier to just do it right after class when they had stuff regarding the tournament to do or if Cha-Cha had homework to grade. Today was one of those days, so when the other students left, Clara remained in her seat, finishing up jotting down her notes.
Eventually the class cleared out, and it was only when she heard Cha-Cha’s footsteps reach the other end of the room, shut the door, and make his way back to his desk in front of hers did she finally set down her quill and look up at him.
“What is it today?” She asked, leaning back into her chair.
“Same as yesterday.” He replied easily.
Clara bit back a groan.
She had taken quickly to learning how to probe into people’s minds, but instead of teaching her how to sift through the mind and memories of a person, Cha-Cha decided that it might work better to build on what she already knew how to do. Since she was good at getting herself inside their heads, it was time to add distractions to make sure she could do it under normal circumstances too.
Well, that’s how it had started anyway. Cha-Cha relished in confusing her and spent the last handful of lessons keeping her on her toes; while they held a normal conversation face to face, they had another entirely different one in their minds, and it was up to Clara to try and dig while still maintaining both conversations.
She was getting better at it, but once they added the second conversation and Cha-Cha switched it to another language, it was difficult. Not impossible, but Clara struggled greatly with it.
The start of their lesson went without a hitch. As usual, the verbal conversation was light, with the one they were having telepathically being anything but normal. While on the surface they were simply talking about Clara’s other classes and Cha-Cha’s experiences at his home school, the other conversation was friendly bickering and him teasing his prized student for her attraction towards him - one that she always denied, but one he continued to point out as a way to try and fluster her into messing up.
Finally, she was able to pull out a memory of Cha-Cha as a young boy beating up another kid - something having to do with an envelope and it making his mom sick - and while she was basking in the praise that he gave her, he surprised her with another task.
“Okay, now let’s try something a little different.”
Wondering what he could have in mind but too eager to learn, she looked up at him awaiting instruction.
“Try to do it now with your eyes closed.”
Clara’s brows pushed together. She knew that it was difficult to do without eye contact, but she hadn’t expected to learn how to do it so soon.
“This is just for me to see where you’re at.” Cha-Cha assured. “We still need to practice what we’ve been doing, but I need to know when we can move on to the next lesson.”
Figuring that made enough sense to not argue with, Clara closed her eyes. Cha-Cha’s voice made her open her eyes again.
“No. Go to the back of the classroom and try to do it. We’ll maintain our conversations but let’s put some space between us.” The glint in his eye was strong enough for Clara to notice, but not enough to accuse him of anything, so she moved off of her desk that she had been sitting on and instead moved to Vasu’s desk. She faced the window instead of Cha-Cha and obediently closed her eyes.
Their conversations continued without a hitch, but Clara found it exceedingly difficult to even probe him with her eyes closed, let alone to dig up a memory of his. Minutes passed and she forgot about her suspicions. She had just scratched the surface though when something happened.
THWAP
Something sticky made contact with her cheek. Her eyes flew open, and she whipped around to shoot a menacing glare at Cha-Cha, who stood behind his desk, howling with laughter.
Clara didn’t need to touch her cheek to know that a sticky hand was there, but she did anyway, ripping off the toy with inhumane speed. She pushed herself off of Vasu’s desk and stomped over to Cha-Cha, whose eyes were now watering from how hard he was laughing.
“You are terrible!” She snapped, dropping the toy in the trash can next to his desk. Her teacher tried to speak again, but instead something similar to a cough transformed into more laughter. She rolled her eyes, too frustrated to speak but finding it difficult to focus on staying mad at him when his enjoyment of her misery looked so pretty.
“You, you just, you were so peaceful and then-” Cha-Cha’s hands clapped together to make a ‘bam’ noise, and he began to laugh again.
Clara crossed her arms and stared him down. He didn’t care.
Last edited:
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust and ricky created by captaindanger
trigger warnings: agr
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter
other characters: cha-cha created by Aviator, kiara created by Wanderlust and ricky created by captaindanger
trigger warnings: agr
NAMELESS STORY
part 3/?
HOGWARTS, 4TH CHALLENGE
___________________________________________
Frustration does funny things even to the most logical of people. Anger is fast to cloud a person's judgment and take control of their mind and body before they can think twice about what they should say or do. There were many times that Clara swore she was going to burn the world down and take pleasure in coating herself in the blood of her enemies, just because she was that angry at them. Like when her mother snapped and hit Clara in the head so hard with a golfing club that she got a concussion, or when Cosmo and his stupid friends trashed Clara's room and broke her guitar - something he swore was an accident but still, she was upset. There was even that time that her twin had stolen her diary and begun to read it aloud - but thankfully a good friend had taken revenge into his hands for her and broke Cosmo's arm in retaliation. That day, there was no need to skin him alive.
But frustration over the absurd was worse. At least she had good reasons back then for her anger.
Clara Winter was at her wits end over this stupid muggle toy. She was damn near ready to sacrifice her place in the Triwizard Tournament and risk getting expelled if it meant that she could do something, anything, to put a permanent stop to her sticky handed torture. Nobody was going to be safe from her eventual rampage, definitely not Chahaya Arif.
THWAP
She only had enough time to colorfully curse before her parchment disappeared off her desk, kidnapped by a giggling Castelbruxo professor with the god forsaken sticky hand that had already followed her around for weeks.
"Cha-Cha! Leave me alone for five minutes, would you!" She snapped, already tired from the way that his shenanigans were worse than usual this particular day.
He, for the most part, completely ignored her as he pulled the neon yellow sticky hand off the stolen parchment, dropping it to the floor and taking aim at a new target. Proof that he had only wanted to further bother her and didn't really need what she had written down.
She glared at him before whirling back around and continuing to work.
Tried to.
Nothing was safe from Cha-Cha and his Amazon sticky hands. Not homework assignments, not lesson notes, not Clara's thigh when they were alone. Cha-Cha had even managed to learn how to wield the hand with his magic, giving him added range and flair with his unprompted attacks.
If it wasn't so annoying, Clara might have told him that it was almost cool.
They were now at the next school in the competition, and Clara had been wrong to assume that a new location meant that the toys would be left behind. While her friends were growing less interested in it, Cha-Cha had only become more obsessed. There went a short period where she had hoped her professor forgot about the toy entirely, but suddenly he was playing with them again and using them to mess with her every chance he got. At the very least, it wasn't a problem in class, but the second they were alone she was in sticky hand hell.
THWAP
Her pot of ink was sent crashing to the floor by that fucking sticky hand. She bent over in her seat to pick it up before continuing on with the test Cha-Cha had given her, deciding that since he spilled her ink, he should be the one responsible for it.
THWAP
Little yellow sticky fingers spread across a window behind her. She shot a look to Cha-Cha, who simply smiled in response. With a huff she went back to her test, thankful for being almost done with it. She supposed she didn't need the parchment back if she could just leave faster.
THWAP
A perfect shot directly to Clara's forehead sent her out of her chair and barreling towards Cha-Cha, no arrangement or know-how behind her attack, just blind rage. Her test was entirely forgotten about, the only thought of substance behind the toy on her head being murderous thoughts that all ended with Cha-Cha's head on a stick.
This was Ricky's fault. He was undoubtedly the reason her favorite teacher had come into contact with these stupid toys in the first place, he was the one who robbed Clara of all her peace of mind.
When they were in their private lessons, Cha-Cha would use the toy to get under her skin like he had just then during her test. When they were outside of school grounds together, he had a marvelous time parading his perfect aim and using his magic to add to the dramatics of a grown man obsessed with a party favor. Clara couldn't go ten steps without him taking aim for her thigh and him hitting the mark every fucking time.
His cherry-cola eyes shimmered with mischief as her hands shoved against his chest, pushing him back into the wall and sending the sticky hand flying off into the distance. She loathed the amusement on his expression, so strong that he didn't even bother trying to push his student off of himself or have the audacity to look even a little bit surprised that she lashed out. If anything, it appeared he was trying to hold back a laugh.
It made Clara seethe.
"Will you grow up?" She snapped. "Stop stealing my stuff and hitting me with that stupid hand!"
Cha-Cha just smiled and slowly produced a smaller, teal sticky hand from his pocket. Also a gift from Ricky, along with the countless others she was sure he had hidden around his classroom for every opportunity he found to rifle her.
Clara's eye twitched.
"And that one."
"I know you have been looking for excuses to touch me, but I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me go." Cha-Cha said, his voice sweet as sugar. She was not deterred, but decided that if she killed her best teacher that it meant whoever tried to teach her next wouldn't be as good.
"You're right. I think you'll find that it is rather difficult to get away with murder. Trust me, I would know." He added, as if that was going to cease any of her violent thoughts. She wasn't an idiot - he was trying to piss her off and it was working.
Clara huffed and let him go begrudgingly, moving back to her desk. She couldn't even focus on the test she had been trying to take, so she hoped that whatever she had been able to focus on was good enough for Cha-Cha to not insist on repeating any lessons. When she turned around, she was met with Cha-Cha who had his hands tucked behind his back, and was looking at her patiently. She noticed he was a little too calm for someone who had just been attacked, but not being in the mood for more games, she approached him and held out her test.
"This is all I'm doing today." She stated, giving no explanation.
"Great! Set it on my desk."
Clara's eyes narrowed, her ocean blues meeting his molten lava browns. She looked down to his arms, hiding his hands, then back to his face.
"No. Let me hand it to you."
Cha-Cha shook his head.
"You have another set behind your back, don't you? Were you waiting for me to turn around so you could hit me with it?"
A snicker told Clara everything she needed to know.
Last edited:
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: cosmo winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: injury + fixing it, mentions of death/mourning death, and implied childhood abuse
my characters: cosmo winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: injury + fixing it, mentions of death/mourning death, and implied childhood abuse
ALL OF THE LITTLE THINGS
part 1/3
___________________________________________
It wasn’t often that Gavy got seriously hurt like she was right then, but now that she was, she was thankful for Raphael to be the one who was helping her.
It hadn’t been her intention to go off alone during the competition and to get hurt, but unfortunately that was just how it ended up going. That challenge allowed champions to work together in teams, and in the spur of the moment she had decided to separate from Raphael and Theodore to follow a hunch that she had. When she finally found them again nearly an hour later, she was covered in blood with a deep cut down her inner forearm.
Now Gavy sat on the stump of a tree with Raphael tending to her wounds using a first aid kit they had been given by staff after seeing her injury. It was bad, but not bad enough to stop the games altogether, and after she insisted she could make it, they still urged her to get patched up. And so patching her up was what Raphael was doing.
Gavy let out a hiss when his hand brushed over a tender part of her arm. She tried to hold it in, as if to convince him it wasn’t as bad as it looked like she had said when they finally found each other again, but he knew what a bad cut looked like and that was one of them.
She didn’t know that patching people up was something that Raphael knew how to do. She knew that he had to fight a lot growing up, but it never occurred to her that healing was a skill he needed to learn for his own sake. It made her heart hurt to think that as a young boy nobody was looking out for him, but in present time all she could think about was how badly her cut stung.
She bit her lip as he poured the disinfectant over her cut, foregoing putting it on a towel and dabbing her ripped skin with it like most would. He muttered an apology, but it went ignored as she tried to focus on not cursing and trying to avoid looking at the state of her arm. The bleeding had stopped, but after that she didn’t dare take a peek in fear of it sending her stomach lurching. She was stronger than she was at the beginning of the competition, but she still wasn’t immune to discomfort. Her pain tolerance wasn’t high enough to ignore the prickling shooting sensation she was feeling.
Gavy found that Raphael was surprisingly tender and careful with her, though it could also have been because he was literally stitching her back together with a needle. She found it easy to focus her mint green eyes on the way his brow creased in concentration and the line of his jaw.
He was unusually quiet as he worked on his best friend, but she had opted to not talk either. She didn’t know if he needed the quiet to focus, but she felt bad about burdening him with this task and figured the least she could do was let him work. She knew he had been worried when she finally got back to them, and she wasn’t about to make it worse by saying the wrong thing.
“All done.” He said after what felt like an eternity. He pulled back from her, standing back to check his work. One hand wrapped around her wrist and the other cupped her elbow as he gently extended her arm to check it in the sunlight.
She was surprised to find that it wasn’t messy like how it was when one of the twins healed her, but then again Ricky and Raphael had always been better at healing than the rest of them. The stitching he did was far less sloppy than what she had expected, and she was thankful to not have much to complain about. Not that she would have, but she wasn’t intentionally going out of her way for pain either; after all, there was still a fat chance the school nurses would still decide to rip out his stitches and redo it themselves.
“Thanks, Raph.” She replied, with all the sincerity in the world.
The smile he gave back to her momentarily waned the guilt in her chest the same way it always did when she was worried about something. But it didn’t last longer than the moment because his face dropped and his expression turned to one more somber.
“Next time don’t go off by yourself. We’re supposed to be a team, you and I.” Gavy was surprised to be scolded in such a gentle tone from Raphael of all people, but before she could make a snarky comment to remind him that he was far more reckless than she could ever dream to be, she caught his eyes and saw a glimpse of the genuine hurt that lingered behind them.
“I know.” She replied in a mutter. There wasn’t much she could do to convince herself or her friend that she wouldn’t get hurt again in the Tournament, because sometimes they had to get hurt to get through to the next challenge. It wasn’t enough for Raphael.
“I’m serious, Gav. I don’t like seeing you hurt.” This time he sounded more firm. Her gaze dropped but their eyes met again. “I don’t know what I’d do with myself if something bad happened to you.”
He tried to cover the crack in his voice with a smile, but Gavy knew him well enough to know that as casual as he was being about the whole thing, he must have really been scared for her when she came back coated in blood. Her heart cracked alongside his voice. She worried about him the same way he worried about her, but he didn’t get nearly as many opportunities to show it. Gavy had multiple times a day to drag Raphael away from a senseless fight and scold him for it, but this time it was her who acted without thinking.
She averted her gaze again, turning her head downwards. “I’m sorry.” She murmured, avoiding his stare.
Gavy was reminded of a time months ago when Raphael had admitted he had begun having nightmares about those around him dying. He hadn’t said much about it, so she just assumed that he had meant all of his friends. But Cosmo accidentally let it slip that the only person Raphael had nightmares about dying was her. Guilt clawed at her insides as she replayed his words in her head, the implications of them running wild. She knew there wasn’t a high chance of anyone dying in the competition but she hadn’t even thought about what it would do to her friends or him if she did.
“It’s alright.” He replied, drawing her attention back up to him. “I’m just glad you’re safe now.”
He gave her a smile, but Gavy could see that it didn’t reach his eyes like it always did. He was still worried and shaken despite her being more or less fine after he helped fix her up. She would probably make it until the competition was over and she could get to the school’s infirmary, but she knew that id she was still shaken from getting hurt, it would be a while before he wasn’t still shaken from finding her hurt.
It wasn’t until that moment that Gavy realized that maybe Raphael’s fear of losing someone he loved wasn’t the same with her. Did he hold her in a different regard to the rest of their friends? Would he have been that upset if it had been one of the twins, Kiara or Ricky that stumbled to him instead of her?
Gavy never lacked of anything to say to Raphael, so instead she opted for nothing at all. They were a chatty pair but they didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with noise if the situation didn’t call for it. Raphael’s arms wrapped around Gavy and she felt his warm, sturdy embrace as he rested his chin atop her head. It reminded them both that they were okay. Her arms slipped around him in reciprocation and she reveled in the soft and steady thump of his heartbeat pounding against her ear.
I don’t want to lose this. She realized in the hug, finding comfort in the feeling of his body against hers. If my own safety is the price I have to pay for his, I’m fine with that.
Hopefully it would never come to that, but the thought of losing him was enough for her hug to tighten around him, her injury be damned.
Raphael was so different from the men who Gavy had encountered in her grandparent’s basement. He never went out of his way to hurt her, never made her feel unsafe in his company, and never flinched from the way her hair changed colors and forced her to be an open book. He was kind and cared about everyone, even if he went about it in crazy ways. She didn’t think she could ever trust a boy until she met him on the train to Ilvermorny. Their bond had only strengthened over time and she wasn’t sure who she would be without him once the tournament was over. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out either.
Last edited:
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: cosmo winter and clara winter
other characters: ricky and raphael created by captaindanger, cha-cha and vasu created by Aviator, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1, and kiara created by Wanderlust
trigger warnings: na
my characters: cosmo winter and clara winter
other characters: ricky and raphael created by captaindanger, cha-cha and vasu created by Aviator, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1, and kiara created by Wanderlust
trigger warnings: na
NAMELESS STORY
part 4/?
HOGWARTS, 4TH CHALLENGE
___________________________________________
The only thought and the brightest idea Cosmo would ever have was to make Ricky busy with fixing something in their dorm when Clara had announced randomly that she wanted to hang with the group. Thankfully Ricky didn't put up much of a fight - something about needing to do his homework anyway - and so the rest of the group, save for Ricky and Clara, had headed out to Hogsmeade without the normal additions to their party. Cosmo's suspicions about his sister being in a sour mood were confirmed when she finally arrived about ten minutes late to their normal hang out spot at The Three Broomsticks, violently swinging the door open with murder in her eyes and a looted sticky hand in her grasp.
"Doesn't she know her anger is feeding into the fun?" Kiara giggled quietly. Cosmo shot her a warning look that was hard to misinterpret; 'be quiet or Clara will kill you'.
"Where the fuck does he keep getting these?" The Winter daughter exclaimed, her every waking moment consumed by sticky hand induced dread. A bunch of onlookers stared at her confused, while her so called friends tried to hold back their amusement.
More weeks had passed since the day in Cha-Cha's classroom during their private legilimency lessons, the day where Clara had shoved him and demanded that he stop using his sticky hand to disturb the peace. As expected, he'd just gotten a bunch of other ones. He'd found a way around every time she asked or demanded him to stop, changing out hands or targets each time she thought up a way to try and end it. To make matters worse, he was careful to make sure to never technically break any of his promises, but she should have known he would find a loophole around anything she asked.
Cha-Cha was a monster.
"He's impossible! The smartest person I know is an idiot! I can't stand him!"
Cosmo, who was sitting in between Raphael and Kiara, could no longer hold back his laughter. He began to laugh until eventually, the entire table was openly laughing at Clara's rampage.
THWAP
Clara yelled a second time as she launched the stolen hand across the room, raging even harder when it landed where her seat was with that stupid sound. She stomped over, muttering insults about her professor and her boots digging into the ground with every step she took.
Vasu, who nobody had noticed was in the same restaurant until he spoke, pipped in from a few tables down. "Find something equally annoying to fight back with." He offered with a shrug. Clara noticed with irritation that even he was biting the inside of his cheek to try and refrain from smiling.
Cosmo's face lit up at the suggestion. "Yes!" He exclaimed, shaking his head in agreement. "He's a legend with the sticky hands, so just find something you're good at to deter him!"
Vasu rolled his eyes. "That's what I just said."
"I said it better."
Clara sat down in her usual spot across from her brother and spent the entirety of their lunch trying to come up with an idea of what she could use. She didn't know enough about toys in the muggle world, which meant that she would need Cosmo to go with her to help pick something.
She grit her teeth, whatever joke that Gavy had made going unnoticed by Clara who was still waist deep in thought. Cosmo couldn't go with her, because if he did, then Ricky would come too, and Ricky was so clearly on Cha-Cha's side in their war. It didn't matter that they were civil with one another; she couldn't risk letting Ricky in on her plotting. Not when the stakes were so high.
It took a few days of planning and a lot of avoiding Cosmo when she had muggle books in her hands, but eventually she devised a plan for sweet, sweet revenge.
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter
other characters: raphael created by captaindanger, vasu created by Aviator, lisandro created by irregular-neptune, and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: the writer doesn't know shit about the stars, the writer googled exactly one constellation and ran with it
my characters: clara winter
other characters: raphael created by captaindanger, vasu created by Aviator, lisandro created by irregular-neptune, and gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: the writer doesn't know shit about the stars, the writer googled exactly one constellation and ran with it
ALL OF THE LITTLE THINGS
part 2/3
___________________________________________
“Raph…. He….. ake……p.”
All Raphael remembered was stuffing his face at dinner and falling flat onto the Durmstrang dorm mattress in his assigned room. He must have knocked out like a light once they were allowed to leave the great hall, which was a surprise because when he finally awoke he found the bed was rather uncomfortable. Then again, he had done a lot of traveling thus far and adjusting to multiple time zones was taxing on the body. A soft voice he didn't recognize right away lulled him away from falling back asleep, and he strained to make out what the voice was saying.
He blinked his eyes open, struggling to adjust to the darkness. Once he did, he saw that Gavy was standing over him. How she’d managed to find his dorm was beyond him, but it wasn’t out of the question to assume that whoever he was sharing that room with simply passed the information along to his other friends. This was something he didn't mind; after all, he wouldn't be their friends if he didn't trust them.
At first, he was confused as to why she was there. Maybe he had slept in late, but by the dark shade in the window, it must have still been dark outside, and on the other beds in the room Lisandro and Vasu were sleeping peacefully. If he had to guess, it must have been around two or three in the morning. Yet there Gavy was, fully dressed, wearing her worn brown jacket and all, looking like she was about to leave somewhere.
Was there a party he was supposed to go to and forgot about? He thought everyone had planned on taking it easy after unpacking. But there couldn't be, because Vasu was still in their room. He was confused by the sight of Gavy, though it wasn’t ever unwelcome.
“Gav?” He managed to croak out, his voice still hoarse with sleep. “Is somethin' the matter?”
“No, everything is okay,” She assures him. “But I’m about to head out to go stargazing.. Um, do you want to come?”
Raphael tried to register what was going on, what she had proposed, but found that he couldn’t tell if he was still asleep or not. Either sleep still had a tight grasp on him or Gavy just looked good; the moonlight was streaming in through the curtains behind her and she looked angelic standing over him. He found it was hard to focus on much else when he thought he was in the presence of someone as beautiful as Aphrodite.
He knew he had been staring for too long without saying anything when she began to fidget nervously, trying and failing to not shrink under his gaze. She looked embarrassed about asking.
“You don’t have to come, but you said you wanted to go sometime and I thought I’d ask…” She murmured. Raphael couldn’t see what color her hair had turned to but he knew it was now bright pink, a color he'd seen a lot more of when the two of them first became close. He knew it to mean she was a little embarrassed. He much preferred when her hair was orange like a tangerine. “Um, nevermind. I’m sorry for waking you.”
She was already walking towards the door by the time his brain finally caught up to him and he realized that it wasn’t a dream. He shot himself out of bed so loudly and quickly that she jumped across the room, startled by the sudden energy he was exhibiting.
“I’m coming.” He insisted, scrambling to find some clothes.
Deciding that he couldn’t go sneaking out in only his boxers, he felt around the floor with his foot until he stepped on what he hoped was his pants and not someone else's. He tugged them on quickly and hopped on one leg, trying to pull his foot through the other. He was clearly struggling with still being tired but Gavy had the decency to not do anything more than giggle at his attempts to move fast. When he was done finishing finding his clothes and looking like an idiot doing so, Raphael joined her in the hallway where she had been waiting.
The Durmstrang castle was the location for their next competition and it was out in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn’t a surprise when they were the only ones out that late. There weren’t many lights to illuminate the path once they were off school property, but the sky was free of any clouds and the moonlight was bright enough to not leave them engulfed in darkness.
Gavy seemed to know where she was going, as she had a map guiding them that Raphael quickly recognized as Clara’s, so he didn’t ask questions and simply followed alongside Gavy. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking as she led them because her face didn’t give away anything, but he didn’t bother asking despite how curious he was. Her hair had turned the color of a bright blue sky when they'd finally left the castle, and that was enough for him to know that whatever she was up to, it was going to be fun.
Sneaking out with Gavy wasn't unusual since they were both pretty impulsive, and it wasn't like their other friends were much better influences on them. But normally they all acted up together. He didn't think much of it and hoped that it was a sign he and Gavy were growing closer, and not that whatever he was getting himself into was going to be boring. He felt it rather difficult to be bored with his friend by his side but the amount of times Clara had tried to teach him how to cook was awful enough that he now regarded any one on one time with the girls with caution.
Before he could get too caught up in his thoughts, he noticed that Gavy had stopped. Out of her small bag she pulled out one of her own personal blankets - the one he knew that her siblings had sent her back to school with to remind her of them - and watched as she carefully spread it out on the grass. He moved to help, but by the time he had done so, she was done and beckoned him to join her on it. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head tilted back to look to the sky. Raphael laid on his back next to her, his arm resting behind his head to cushion it.
“Argo Navis is out tonight,” She explained, her chin resting on her knees as she looked up at the night sky. “See those stars up there?” Her fingers trailed over the sky, pointing up at the stars. “That’s Pyxis and Puppis.”
Gavy’s eyes scanned the vast sky before them, but there was so much to look at that Raphael felt too overwhelmed to begin to look for what she was referring to. He felt a little stupid, because they were so far out from any light pollution that there was really no reason for his confusion.
“I can’t see it.” He admitted, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to follow her fingers.
“Maybe this will help.” She laid down beside him, resting the side of her head against his to try and see what he was seeing. She picked up his hand and guided his finger towards the stars she wanted him to notice first. “You might be able to find it from Carina.”
“That over there is Canopus,” She began, pointing at things as she spoke them aloud. “And over here is Carina. Right above those is Puppis.”
Raphael squinted his eyes, thinking it would help him try to find what she was talking about. He tried to vaguely make out shapes resembling what she wanted him to see, but his attention was more drawn to how soft the palm of her hand felt against the back of his.
“Pyxis is to the left of it, and together they make the ship.” She guided his hand to outline the shape of the boat.
“Interesting.” He murmured, a little excited now that he could see what Gavy was explaining to him.
She gave him a soft smile before turning her attention back to the sky. Raphael tried his best to follow along as she pointed out more constellations, but there were so many stars that he quickly found himself lost again. Instead of following along, he turned his attention to Gavy and her enraptured rambling about the stars. He thought she looked cute when she was completely consumed by her passions.
Gavy seemed to know what she was talking about, but it all went over his head because all he could really see were a bunch of dots on a black background that he couldn’t possibly imagine being interpreted as anything else. It didn’t really matter what he thought because in her voice he could hear all the love and passion she held for the skies and the stars. He hummed along to concede each fact that she sent his way, her eyes never leaving the stars and his eyes never leaving her.
Her hand still rested atop his, and she didn’t make any complaint when he adjusted their hands so their fingers were intertwined. When she finally ran out of things to tell him, they lay together in comfortable silence and everything felt just right.
“Gavy?”
His words captured her attention. Her green eyes moved from the sparkly sky to meet Raphael’s brown eyes as she awaited his next words.
“Thanks.”
She stared at him in confusion, thrown off by his thanks. Seeing this, Raphael decided to elaborate.
“For bringing me out here with you.”
“Oh. No biggie.” In the darkness he could see the light flush that spread across her cheeks and the change of tone in the color of her hair as she replied. Her hair was now a vibrant pink, a color that Raphael had grown to see a lot more of when it was just the two of them. “Thanks for coming with. I wanted to share this with you.”
Raphael valued his sleep but he never minded being woken up if it was for her. Gavy was his best friend. She was his guiding star. She was smart, and kind, and full of love. She was everything good in the world, and really, he wasn’t sure where he’d be without her.
A cool breeze passed them by and Gavy scooted closer to him for warmth, which he was happy to provide. Not giving it much thought, he tossed an arm over her and pulled her close, laughing at the surprised squeak she let out in response.
Gavy let out a large yawn, which elicited one from Raphael, and together the two fell asleep under the stars. The next morning brought hell onto them because they didn’t have a good enough reason to have snuck out to avoid getting detention from professor Einar, but Raphael cherished the memory and found himself with little to no regrets even as he and Gavy were instructed to clean chalkboards for an hour at the end of their classes.
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter and amity
other characters: ricky created by captaindanger, vasu and cha-cha created by Aviator and sasha created by thundercloud611
trigger warnings: did not edit or proofread this at all, it will get reworked when im not sleep deprived and exhausted from traveling, sometimes the planning is the friends we make along the way (my rough draft outlining the plot for this story got deleted)
my characters: clara winter, cosmo winter and amity
other characters: ricky created by captaindanger, vasu and cha-cha created by Aviator and sasha created by thundercloud611
trigger warnings: did not edit or proofread this at all, it will get reworked when im not sleep deprived and exhausted from traveling, sometimes the planning is the friends we make along the way (my rough draft outlining the plot for this story got deleted)
My Cat Tried To Kill Me (NOT CLICKBAIT)
part 1/?
___________________________________________
When Vasu woke up, he was startled to find that he did not know where he was.
Such was to be expected when he had been spending the last four months traveling abroad with his school, but when he blinked his brown eyes into focus, he had been expecting to be in a dorm of sorts rather than what looked to be a school infirmary.
To make matters worse, when he tried to sit up, he was instantly brought into a world of pain. A sharp, shooting pain that traveled quickly from the middle of his back, up his right shoulder into the side of his neck only finalized that he would not succumb back to sleep any time soon. He hissed, falling back onto his elbows and abandoning his attempt to sit rather than lay.
It had to be the middle of the day. The array of windows behind him revealed that it was a particularly sunny afternoon. From his angle he couldn’t see much of the sky but the little bits of bright blue that he could see hinted at there not being many clouds, if any, present. A soft breeze caressed the light gray curtains that were attached to each window, toying with the cups of wavy hair that hung below his eyebrows.
Tentatively he raised a hand and brushed back his bangs, trying to remember how he had gotten to where he was. He looked down at his clothes, and felt his heart lurch when he realized that he most certainly didn’t own whatever he was wearing, which meant someone had to have changed him while he was unconscious.
Vasu valued his privacy. He didn’t like when people got too close to him in general because there was a power that came with not showing any particular person all of your cards. If he hadn’t been that way, he still would have been jarred by the idea of someone disrobing him when he was too powerless to do it himself or prevent it, or who knew what else, from happening. It was surrendering and it wasn’t something he did.
He was in what appeared to be clothes for students that had to stay in the infirmary overnight, which was confusing because he could tell it wasn’t anywhere close to evening, but also raised his pulse because he didn’t know why he was there to begin with. The loose-fitting gray and blue shirt hung on him like a dress, though he was thankful to see after taking a peek under the blanket that he was indeed wearing pants, even if they were matching ones that felt less like soft fabric and more rough like sandpaper.
Not given time to piece together much else, there was the noise of a heavy wooden door dragging open on the stone ground, indicating that someone had just walked in. To his surprise, it was Clara and Amity. The former had stormed in the best she could while the latter followed hot on her heels. Vasu could tell they were arguing, but as to why he didn’t know.
Though he was the one in the cot, Clara looked to be in worse shape than he was. From his position he could see that she was holding a thick wad of gauze to her side, the in betweens of her fingers stained with burgundy. He noticed she looked gross, with dirt smeared across parts of her face, and her knees and elbows especially filthy. She wore what he recognized as her hiking gear. What he didn’t recognize, however, was the fearful look she wore and the paler than usual tone of her skin.
Recognizing that she and their professor were arguing, Vasu made quick work of making himself appear to be asleep before either of them could notice him - quickly and quietly lowering himself back to a laying down position and allowing the features of his face to fall soft as his eyes closed.
“I’m fine, but is Vasu up? Did my spell work? Is he oka-”
“Yes, but we don’t know what’s going on. Is he going to remember enough to-”
“I need to see him.” Vasu didn’t like the teetering of his friend’s voice. He fought against the urge to open his eyes to see what expression Clara wore with it. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”
He heard Amity let out an exasperated sigh. “Why did he want to hurt you? He almost killed you, Clara, I-”
“I know he didn’t mean it, he wouldn’t just stab me out of the blue,” Clara insisted. His eyes weren’t open but he didn’t need them to be to know that as convincing as she sounded, her eyes would give away the hurt she felt. Simultaneously Vasu’s heart faltered; she was right, but why couldn’t he remember what happened? Why would he stab his friend? “you don’t understand, it wasn’t-”
Amity was quick to cut off her student, something Vasu was grateful for and angry about. He needed answers and had a feeling he wouldn’t get them from anyone except Clara. They were real friends and she wouldn’t hide the truth from him.
“No, stop,” Amity said, going back on her previous disbelief. As to why, Vasu wasn’t sure, but she sounded convinced that Clara was telling the truth out of nowhere. “I believe you but we need to let him rest. I’m going to check on him and after dinner, I’ll grab you and Cha-Cha so we can talk.”
“No Cha-Cha." Clara said too quickly. The silence suggested that Amity was as surprised by this as he was, but only one of them could show it without fear of being caught. “Just you and I. And Vasu. Are you sure I can’t help? I’m really good at cleaning wounds, and I think he might like having me there when he wa-”
Vasu had never heard Clara beg or sound desperate before but there she was, foregoing any of her usual charm or manipulation tactics to get what she wanted. It was a side he had never seen of her before. If he wasn’t left trying to guess what in Merlin’s beard was going on, he would have used it later to tease Clara.
What happened to me that she’s so scared of?
Vasu was in pain, but a lot of it subsided to a dull ache after he had given up on sitting; he didn’t feel as if he was seriously hurt. As a matter of fact he wasn’t sure he needed to stay overnight in the infirmary.
“No Cha-Cha, but you can’t stay.” Amity countered. Clara groaned. “Look, I can sense his emotions, remember?” She pointed out. Vasu wondered what the fuck that meant, but she had always been an odd professor. “I’d even know if he was faking being asleep.”
There was a brief silence. Vasu told himself it was impossible that they knew he was awake. “Go get checked out.” Amity insisted. There was another silence, then footsteps and eventually, the door shutting. Amity walked over to him and brushed some of his hair out of his face.
“You don’t have to fake anymore,” She said gently. “She has left. It is just you and I in here.”
Vasu didn’t move a muscle, not wanting to admit defeat in his lie.
He heard a chair move, a sign that Amity had sat down in the one that had been next to his cot. “Vasu, I know you’re awake. You’re scared and I can answer some of your questions before you are asked some by the other teachers.”
As much as he had in common with Clara, he didn’t share her willingness to die on mundane hills. He opened his eyes and was met with Amity’s smile. The warmth her lips conveyed didn’t quite reach her eyes, but the shiny parts under them told Vasu that whatever had happened was enough to scare more than just Clara.
“What happened?” He asked, his voice sounding like sandpaper. He began to cough. Amity quickly stood up. Next to his cot he noticed a side table with a variety of things on it, one of them being a pitcher of water. Amity poured them each a cup, handing the plastic container to Vasu. He took a long sip while she sat down and explained some of the missing gaps in his memory.
“You had another episode I think,” She began. “I say think because Clara says it was, but you looked normal except for the erratic behavior.”
Vasu swallowed and looked at Amity expectantly. She hesitated. “You know, I can fill you in once you’ve had enough time to-”
“She’s hurt.” He said plainly, his voice still hurting. “Was it really me?”
She glanced up again before nodding and meeting his eyes once more. He felt his blood run cold. “You two were partners during the last tournament. You guys split from Cosmo and Sasha to fight some of the boggarts. Do you remember?”
Vasu didn’t like that he couldn’t remember anything. Amity must have sensed his growing anxiety because she continued, not allowing him long enough to answer.
“Anyways, one minute you two were laughing and the next you were trying to kill her.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” He said, doubtfully despite knowing he was right.
“I know,” Amity assured quickly. “Clara told me as much. But she must have been scared you would seize to the point of passing out and hurt yourself on accident, so she tossed her wand to help you.”
Vasu didn’t have the energy to conceal his real emotions, but the expression on his face apparently hadn’t been impassive enough to fool Amity.
“I know,” She said, almost in a joking tone. “that’s when we realized it was serious.
“At first we thought you suspected her of being a Boggart. It was a stretch but we didn’t intervene. We saw a lot of interesting ones.” Amity added on. Vasu wished he remembered some of it just for the sake of knowing why Amity’s face had scrunched into an expression that conveyed many phrases that professors weren’t allowed to say, such as ‘what the fuck’. “But you were saying a lot of weird stuff and when she finally was able to pin you down and get your wand away, you pulled out a blade and…”
Her voice trailed off, knowing that she didn’t need to go any further on what he’d done to her. There had been so much blood, and knowing that she’d recently gifted him a blade and how good his aim was, it was a miracle that she was walking and talking.
“After that, you began seizing. Clara was able to… assist you, until she needed help herself. We brought you up here and fixed you up the best we could.”
“Why don’t I remember more?” He asked. Normally he remembered more around his episodes, but it felt as if there was a bigger hole than normal in his memory. Amity had asked something about his memory earlier.
“I don’t know entirely,” Amity admitted. “This episode was worse than your other ones, but Clara had tried to make you pass out so that you wouldn’t hurt her. I wonder if the spell backfired and messed with your memory somehow.”
Vasu had a feeling she was lying, but he had no way of proving it. And the stare he gave her didn’t make her flinch.
He wished Clara had fought harder to stay. She would have told him the truth.
“Do you remember anything today?” She asked instead, listing off a few things she saw him do. “You ate one of Clara’s croissant for breakfast, complained about working with Cosmo, you were harmonizing with Clara and Sasha and then yelled at Cosmo for ruining the song…”
Eventually Vasu sighed and closed his eyes. He didn’t like the sudden onset panic and depression he was feeling at having hurt a friend and not remembering doing something so awful. He wasn’t someone who cried a lot but the familiar swell of pressure behind his eyes was a warning that unless he wanted his freak of a Divination teacher to see him cry, he needed to pretend to be overwhelmed and annoyed by the situation instead of overwhelmed and scared.
He was good at that, but Amity was better at sensing it.
“Hey, it’s okay,” She assured, resting a hand gently atop Vasu's. He kept his eyes closed and didn’t pull his hand away, finding the gesture rather nice when he was feeling so many emotions suddenly. “Clara knows you weren’t in your right mind, and I do too. We have medical notes that have been tracking your episodes, we’ll make sure you don’t get into any trouble or disqualified.”
His eyes shot open, and thankfully he hadn’t wallowed in his feelings long enough to allow too many tears to form.
“Being a competitor is on the line?”
Vasu couldn’t afford to lose. Adtidi was awful to live under, her pressure having began cracking him years before he’d even known what the Triwizard Tournament was. She was a terrible woman to owe favors to and he needed to win to escape her manipulation and crushing rulings that had ruined much of his life.
“Not if we can convince the judges of what’s going on.” Amity said quickly, withdrawing her hand. “Clara and Cha-Cha are still looking hard to figure out the cause of your episodes, but they are getting worse. I’ll only ask once because I know what your answer will be, but I have to ask. Do you want to pull out so that you can focus on your health?”
“No.” There wasn’t a beat between her question and his answer. But there was before he added, “Will she be okay?”
Amity smiled. “I believe so. She passed out after you started to seize and I think Cosmo and Ricky tended to her until medics could arrive. They used magic to hold her over but you know how she is when she gets hurt.”
Vasu did, which was why he felt as if Amity wasn’t telling him the whole truth. Clara would have milked all of the attention she could have gotten for him hurting her. She would have faked being hurt for longer to get stuff. Which meant either Vasu really had hurt her bad enough that she was pretending to be fine in order to make sure he didn’t get in trouble, or everyone was being nice to him because they had something bad to tell him. The lack of dramatics from his friend chilled him to the bone.
“I want to see her.” He said, trying to sit up. He winced at the pain and tried to fight against Amity’s hand that had flown out to push his shoulder back down. “It’s not polite to shank your frie-”
“You can’t.”
Vasu stopped fighting against Amity’s hand and looked at her, thrown by the sudden change of tone in her voice. “And why not? I heard her ask to see me.”
He didn’t like the way her lips pursed at his question or how her expression gave away the pity she was trying to hide. Vasu had seen her as a skilled liar - he didn’t know the half of her secrets but was versed enough in performances to know that Amity faked a lot of her expressions to throw people off her scent. But the raw emotion she portrayed then was undeniably what she truly felt.
“There is a theory around your episodes.”
He waited for her to elaborate. She broke eye contact, not wanting to continue, but Vasu pushed anyways, despite not seeing a connection between the cause of his seizures and not being allowed to see Clara right then. “What is it?”
“You know, you really should-”
“Tell me.”
She met his eyes again, but he didn’t back down. Seemingly deciding that he deserved to know about his own condition, Amity started to speak.
“You don’t like your cat.”
Of all the things Amity could have started with, this was the last thing Vasu expected. He opened his mouth to speak but she fixed him with a stare so hard it rendered him silent.
“I see how you look at Zoya, I know you think she’s creepy. A lot of us do.” For good measure, she glanced over at the cat who was pretending to sunbathe on an empty cot next to them. “And we think there is a reason she is not a ‘real’ cat.” This was said in air quotes, her cup now sitting on the table, abandoned after one sip.
“Her? What does she have to do with any of this?”
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: cosmo winter and clara winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, raphael and ricky created by captaindanger, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: brief mentionings of hookups
my characters: cosmo winter and clara winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, raphael and ricky created by captaindanger, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1
trigger warnings: brief mentionings of hookups
JUST FRIENDS
part 1/2
___________________________________________
Cosmo had to know. He needed to ask her. He knew what her answer would be, but he still needed to ask her.
Just in case, he told himself. Just in case I'm wrong.
"Why do you always leave?"
He and Kiara are laying in his bed, sweaty and limbs tangled together. Cosmo pulled Kiara a little closer with the arm draped around her waist. He always hugged her once they were finished, making sure she didn't even have time to think about getting too far away from him, or worse, leaving his dorm altogether.
He was lucky that his roommates Raphael and Ricky never seemed to mind making themselves scarce for about an hour when Cosmo and Kiara needed a place to hook up. At first he had tried to hide their private rendezvous altogether, but Cosmo was a terrible liar; Raphael noticed the marks on his back when they would work out together and Ricky had found a thong he was certain wouldn't fit Cosmo - not that it stopped him from asking his friend to model it for him to further embarrass him.
He wasn't sure where they were this time, but it was likely they were still at whatever party they had followed Clara and Gavy to. He and Kiara had left early but they weren't the first ones to do so. It didn't matter though; neither of them were drunk and Cosmo had been quick to place silencing charms around their door to ensure they could be as loud as they wanted without getting caught.
"What do you mean?" Kiara asked through a yawn, snuggling closer to him.
Cosmo smiled, his heart doing a cartwheel in his chest. He knew he should probably stop worrying that she would leave - she never seemed able to. It was something Cosmo liked since he loved tiring her out. She always became exhausted after their meetups, to the point of forgetting all her inhibitions. It was his favorite part of their routine; falling asleep while holding her, Kiara cuddling him back, probably without even realizing it.
He stroked her hair as he thinks. He was quiet for a long time as he tried to meticulously pick the right words without giving away too much of his true feelings.
"Every time I wake up, you're gone. If it wasn't for the stains on my sheets or strands of hair left on my pillow, I would believe I dreamt everything."
Kiara doesn't answer him. Cosmo continued to play with the strands of dirty blonde hair glued to her neck and cheek, but she didn't stir. Maybe it's better this way, He tells himself. Maybe it is better that she fell asleep before she could hear his silly thoughts, before she could give him a response that was likely only going to hurt him.
But just when he closed his eyes, he heard her whisper. "Waking up together is for those who love each other."
Her breaths became slower, deeper, and leveled out as she fell asleep. Cosmo watched her face relax, willing his soul to stop aching.
He knew for the better half of a year that he was in love with Kiara. Their first time hooking up had only solidified what his heart already knew. Cosmo didn't normally take to love easily - he wasn't one of those guys that dated around - but as soon as he developed a crush on Kiara, those feelings quickly snowballed into something much bigger and meaningful.
He knew himself well enough to know that it wasn't just lust, but there was no room for confusion when he liked looking at her in class the same way he did when she was in his bed, unguarded and in bliss. Watching her face scrunch up during a difficult question on a test brought the same butteflies he felt when they held hands in private. Kiara's radiant smile and mellow giggles never failed to make his heart feel as though it were glowing. Cosmo was absolutely smitten with Kiara.
But it didn't seem as though she felt the same.
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: cosmo winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, raphael and ricky created by captaindanger
trigger warnings: na
my characters: cosmo winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, raphael and ricky created by captaindanger
trigger warnings: na
JUST FRIENDS
part 2/2
___________________________________________
A month and a half had passed from that night before, when Cosmo woke up again, afraid to open his eyes.
He could still feel her.
He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, Kiara would be gone like she always was. If he opened his eyes, he would see that she wasn't really there, that what he felt then was just her shadow brought to life by his desperate heart and by her scent still present on his sheets. He would see that what he felt pressed against his shoulder wasn't her head, but a pillow instead. He would see that what he felt above his chest and over his legs weren't her tired limbs, but his blanket.
She feels so real.
He basked a few more seconds in the feeling before he finally opened his eyes.
He froze.
Kiara was laying next to him, half her body atop his.
Cosmo forced his heart to slow down, fearful of its loud thump rising her from her slumber. It was silly to think that it would ever be loud enough for her to hear, or for anyone to hear, but it was silly to think that she remained in bed with him yet there she was.
He didn't dare to hope and began to explain away the situation before him.
Perhaps.. Maybe he just woke up earlier than usual. Maybe, if he waited a little while longer, Kiara would wake up on her own. She would rise from the bed, quietly dressing herself with the clothes that were still scattered on the floor. She would tip-toe her way out of his dorm, past Ricky and Raphael, and that would be it.
That's exactly what's going to happen, Cosmo thought to himself, soul still trembling, still hoping beyond hope that he was wrong. There is no need for me to get up and make her feel awkward when she wakes.
That is what he settled on. He closed his eyes, feigning still being asleep. He tried to ignore the urge to shift to his side and embrace her or brush her hair. To just touch her. But he didn't.
When he thought he wasn't going to be able to withstand from it, when he was about to risk everything just to show her some unrequited affection, Kiara stirred. Cosmo's whole body stilled, waiting.
She woke up slowly. She stretched her legs, then her back. She moved her hand softly up and down his chest, as if she knew he was awake and was trying to test his resolve. She yawned, sweetly, and then stopped moving, pressing her head deeper against his shoulder.
Cosmo was shaking.
He waited a few more moments, just to be sure that she truly, really, wasn't leaving.
He turned onto his side, his arm snaking around her waist. With his heart between his teeth, he waited to see whether she would leave now that she knew he was awake too.
She didn't.
She didn't flinch in surprise or freeze in shock. She merely laid there, breathing softly.
"You said waking up together is for those who love." His voice was just a whisper between them, a wanting sigh against her face.
Kiara brushed her nose against his chest, hiding her face from him. "I did."
Cosmo trembled, as if the happiness he was feeling was trying to break loose from his body. "Have you changed your mind about it?"
"I haven't."
She hasn't.
He beamed, his cheeks hurting as he looked down at her, shifting a little, trying to force her gaze upwards to meet his. She finally does, and Cosmo's breath hitched. Her eyes were soft, softer than he had ever seen them. The corners of her mouth were slightly tipped upward.
She locked her gaze with his, as though there was no other thing she could physically do. He looked into her eyes, so deep he could see the shining of his own. Then suddenly, her hands came up and covered his eyes.
"Stop looking at me like that." She murmured quietly, remembering the two other boys that were sleeping in the room.
Cosmo grinned in the chilled darkness of her palms, but he thought better of his plan to intentionally rile up Kiara. "Okay."
Slowly, as though fearful, Kiara took her hands away from his brown eyes. A laugh bubbled out of her when she saw the grimace plastered on his face.
She laughed, and laughed, and Cosmo had never seen her so cheerful. One of her hands went to her stomach, as though the amusement was eating her from the inside out. Ricky and Raphael were no longer a concern, or they couldn't possibly be when she was laughing so hard.
Soon, he began to laugh too, unable to keep up the ridiculous face he had intentionally plastered onto hisself. Still, he tried to fiegn inoccence.
"What is so funny, dear Kiara? You told me to stop looking at you in that way, so I did."
His obvious sarcasm only made her laugh harder.
She is happy. I made her happy.
Cosmo laughed with her, convinced that he could hear his heart sing, even as Ricky woke up and threw a pillow at them. Even when Raphael woke up too, turning the light on and sending Kiara down straight onto Cosmo's chest in an attempt to hide her bare body from their friends.
Last edited:
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: cosmo winter, clara winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, cha-cha created by Aviator, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1, ramona and lisandro created by irregular--neptune
trigger warnings: abuse from childhood, being tortured, being kidnapped, attempted murder, familial problems
my characters: cosmo winter, clara winter
other characters: kiara created by Wanderlust, cha-cha created by Aviator, ricky and raphael created by captaindanger, gavy created by Sanctuaryforall1, ramona and lisandro created by irregular--neptune
trigger warnings: abuse from childhood, being tortured, being kidnapped, attempted murder, familial problems
AN AWKWARD DINNER
oneshot
___________________________________________
It was no secret that Cosmo and Cha-Cha disliked one another. Anybody with eyes could see how they glared at each other over their glasses whenever they had to dine together. But Cha-Cha loved his girlfriend, and his girlfriend clearly had some strange familial feelings that she was confused by, and so that meant that he never complained when Clara would insist they all got together. After all, it wasn't a request that came by often, and Cosmo would avoid Cha-Cha otherwise besides when Clara wanted them both in her company.
Still, that didn't change the fact that his forehead always hurt from how strongly he frowned during these meals.
These days, Cosmo was snippier than ever and it was anybody's guess as to why. After the tournament, the twins had kept a good relationship but things got rocky again once Clara went no contact with the rest of their family, save for Cosmo. He hadn't taken to her decision well despite understanding it, and there had been no way to change his opinion of Cha-Cha when it was he that she moved in with. Now, nearly six years after the two Winter twins graduated from Durmstrang and got into their careers, Clara's brother and boyfriend were still struggling to get along; Cha-Cha could only be pleasant and witty so much before he tired of Cosmo's superior complex.
That's why, against everything Cha-Cha wanted, he found himself glaring down who he hoped would eventually be his brother in-law.
They had to put in some work to properly stare at each other. With Cosmo at the head of the table and his girlfriend Kiara opposite him, Cha-Cha was at a disadvantage. He was sitting next to his girlfriend, across from Ricardo, and so he had to turn his head to flash Cosmo sour looks or overly captivating smiles. Clara had picked up on the tension - she always did - and was gripping his thigh so tightly that he knew he'd have bruises in the morning.
Cosmo took a break from glaring to ask some question about Clara's job, which she answered with all the grace of a professional ballet dancer. Cha-Cha was so distracted by using the moment to take a sip of his mocktail that it wasn't until the room descended into silence that he realized his girlfriend had left him room to speak.
"My apologies, my mind was elsewhere." he said, coming back to the conversation and offering Clara a sheepish grin. He only looked sheepish around her, only apologized genuinely for her. Anywhere else, with anyone else, he would've been content to continue ignoring them. But not her, never her.
Cha-Cha was never the type to be quiet and anything less than his usual charming self, but he found that when it came to Cosmo, his talents were wasted. It was a long lost cause to try and redeem himself to him, and so he had given up years ago on this. Surprisingly it had been Clara who told him it was okay if Cosmo couldn't be bought, because she loved Cha-Cha regardless and it wouldn't change for anything.
"It's alri-"
"Typical." Cosmo mumbled under his breath, loud enough to interrupt Clara.
She and Cha-Cha both bristled.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" She asked, her fiercely overprotective nature cutting through any hope of maintaining diplomacy. This wasn't a dinner back at one of the magic schools during the tournaments where they were monitored by the Ministry; she could rip people to shreds if she wanted.
Cha-Cha laid a hand on her back, his long fingers stretching effortlessly over the delicate silk of her dress as he wordlessly told her he'd take care of this.
Across the table, Gavy looked to be considering faking a heart attack to have an excuse to get herself and Raphael out. Down the table, Ramona was eyeing the wine glass in front of her, wondering if anyone would notice her turning the whole thing bottoms up. Directly to Cha-cha's right, Kiara rolled her eyes, muttering something about Cosmo always stirring up trouble for no reason.
Cosmo stared Cha-Cha down and the entire room grew tenser. "I said it was typical," He repeated, blinking matter of factly. "As in, it's typical for you to leave all the talking to Clara while you mess around in your mind - or hers, probably."
"Cosmo, don't talk to her boyfriend that way." Kiara warned.
"He's barely a guest," Cosmo snapped. "He's only welcome here by proxy because of my sister. My sister, who he is not worthy of."
Lisandro cooly wrapped his arm around the back of Ricky's chair, glancing around the room as if hoping to find an excuse to leave before the fight got worse.
Cha-Cha moved quickly, sliding his hand from Clara's back to her thigh and dug his fingers into her skin to keep her seated, knowing that if he hadn't that she would have sprung out of her seat to give Cosmo a good yelling. Boredly, he looked Cosmo up and down.
"I don't see why there's so much animosity for a subject we agree on," he calmly announced. "I've made it quite clear that I feel undeserving of the gift it is to be with Clara."
Cosmo blenched a little, opening his mouth to say something.
Cha-Cha cut him off. "What confuses me is the fact that you don't seem to feel the same way about being her brother. You act like you're entitled to the role, like you haven't been her biggest hater for her whole life."
He reached down and grabbed his wine glass, swirling it around before taking a delicate sip to build the tension. He ignored the light pressure on the surface of his mind that was Clara trying to peek in to see what he was going to say; there was enough trust that it was not a fight to not have 24/7 access to each other's thoughts.
"Like you somehow have done anything other than turn a blind eye to Clara when she needed you and prolonged her danger and suffering," He continued, studying the way the light glinted off his glass before turning back to Cosmo. "Like you had anything to do with her still being here with us today."
If they were half a decade younger, this would be about the time that other teachers would move to separate the two to keep them from killing each other. But they weren't back in the tournament, so no one stopped Cosmo from slamming his fists on the table and standing tall, looking ready for a fight.
Cha-Cha didn't give him the satisfaction of rising to face him. Instead, he remained comfortably seated beside his girlfriend - who was shooting rapid glances between him and her brother. She didn't know exactly what this was about, only knowing that while she was gone Cosmo had been a difficult participant in pretending to be a victim to bring her back home and that he somehow could have prevented when she got stabbed shortly after being allowed back in the tournament. She hadn't held it against him because she wasn't there to see what was going on, but with how angry her boyfriend was, she wondered if she should have asked about it sooner.
But that was exactly why Cha-Cha hadn't said anything to her. He knew she needed to work on recovering and that she wanted a relationship with her brother even if it was complicated. Who was he to step in the middle of that?
"I did what I could!"
"You treated her like the dirt beneath your shoes because you were too coward to stand up to the purist beliefs you were raised on," Cha-Cha shot back, his voice betraying his disgust. "You let your parents treat her like shit for having the backbone you lack, and when problems came elsewhere you still threw her to the wolves to raise your own social status. When she was taken by your mother, you didn't want to help bring Clara back, and you dare to call that doing what you could?"
And there it was, the genesis of Cha-Cha's hatred for Cosmo. No matter how many dinners they suffered through or how much time passed, he'd always despise Cosmo for what he'd done to Clara their whole life.
It didn't matter that they were both kids trying to survive, because even after Clara was brought home safely and their parents were no more, Cosmo still made her the butt of his jokes and treated her like she was below him. At seventeen she was forced to do terrible things when her captors thought she was under the Imperius Curse, forced to kill, a lifelong of suffering at the hands of her own parents and brother, who knew it was all wrong but didn't care enough to step up and protect her the way she always protected him. A lifetime of scorn and suffering that could have been avoided entirely if Cosmo wasn't so selfish.
"I wanted her back more than you did!" Cosmo yelled. "I wanted to go get her sooner, but you're the one who sat on your ass and did nothing because you didn't want to leave to go rescue her!"
"She would have come back sooner if we'd done my plan from the start. It worked, as I told you it would from the beginning."
"And what about you not letting her pull out of the tournament? I bet that wasn't self centered at all."
Cha-Cha's eye twitched. "That was to protect her."
He finally stood, setting down his glass and turning to face Cosmo again. His oil-slick eyes swirled with hatred and he was thankful they weren't in the presence of the Ministry, solely because he knew that if they were, he would've already been escorted away and questioned for merely looking threatening.
"You didn't see her when she came back from America because you were too busy to read my letters when I sent for you. You didn't see how sick she was, how scared she was all the fucking time." Cha-Cha growled. "I tried to convince the Ministry to pull her out to give her time to heal, to give her the chance to realize she didn't need to win some flashy game to be worthy of reclaiming her life, or the love of her own brother. Because you know, you're such a great brother that she was more worried about you being disappointed in her than she was getting a hold on her mental health."
He stepped back and politely pushed his chair in, pulling Clara's out and helping her up.
"But staying in the tournament ended up saving her. She was itching to get back to her new normal despite the hurdles she was coping with - without you, by the way, because you weren't there for her at all. She wanted to jump back into her life and she was eager to learn and live. I won't lie to you, I'm thankful they couldn't pull her out. I don't think she would have survived without something to distract her, and I don't think I would have survived watching her suffer for so long."
He went to the coat-rack and grabbed Clara's jacket before walking back to wrap it around her shoulders.
"But then you made everything worse by ordering that hit on her."
Cosmo opened his mouth.
"Granted, you thought she really was under the Imperius Curse," Cha-Cha acknowledged. "I suppose you, her so-called loving brother, never loved her enough to consider all of your options instead of jumping to killing her for convenience."
Clara stared at her boyfriend, noticing how his hands shook in anger. She remembered the incident but oddly felt like she was on the outside of something she should know about.
"And when you figured it out, when you finally saw it was her, that's when you truly lost any hope of being a good brother," He looked back to Cosmo, tears of fury wetting his eyes. "Because when you were faced with your sister, the one you bullied and helped abuse and pretended to love, you still told your men to go through with it."
Memories of Clara bleeding out in his classroom flirted through his mind and he bit his cheek against the wave of nausea it always brought up. He could sense her mind running rampant trying to piece together a story he knew she didn't have, and tried to focus on that instead of the view of her reaching out to him on the floor of his classroom, freshly seventeen and bleeding to death.
"You watched them stab her and left her to die." He whispered. "You ran her through because it was easier for you and you dare to say I'm the one undeserving of her?"
Clara didn't know what to say as she looked at her boyfriend, as she felt his fingers digging into the flesh of her arm. She'd never seen him so raw with emotion, never heard him discuss his hatred of Cosmo in such detail.
There had been an attempt on her life shortly after it was announced that she would be allowed back in the tournament. Clara thought it had been someone working for her family, but she felt her blood run cold at the realization that it had been Cosmo behind it.
Cosmo tried to kill me. Why?
Her head whipped around to Cha-Cha when she realized there was a gap in her memories she'd never questioned until now.
Did he think I was under the Imperio Curse? No, Cha-Cha wouldn't be so mad over that.
She thought harder, her mind running the speed of light.
He already had the inheritance in the bag, so it couldn't have been for money. I wasn't going to get any more of it after I sent it to Cha-Cha. Nothing makes sense. Why can't I remember anything that happened before I woke up in the infirmary? Cha-Cha must have had Amity erase the memory since I was so happy to be reunited with my brother when I woke up.
She didn't fight as Cha-Cha pushed her to the door, deciding that she would ask him about it once they'd left to go back to their house. Clara was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice him stop to whisper in Cosmo's ear.
"I look forward to the day Clara sees you for you," he admitted, "because then I know I'll no longer have to worry about you putting her in more danger."
"And what about you?" Cosmo asked, a tinge of desperation in his voice. "How will I know that you're no longer killing people for her, or twisting her mind? You, who have always been undeserving of her?"
"Your peace of mind isn't my problem. Hers is."
pearjuice
Member
fandom: harry potter
my characters: clara winter and amity
other characters: ricky created by captaindanger, cha-cha created by Aviator, and kiara created by Wanderlust
trigger warnings: na
my characters: clara winter and amity
other characters: ricky created by captaindanger, cha-cha created by Aviator, and kiara created by Wanderlust
trigger warnings: na
NAMELESS STORY
parts 5 and 6/?
the first part was too short to post on its own, the second part was so long i shouldve just posted it on its own. oopsie
HOGWARTS, 4TH CHALLENGE
___________________________________________
Later that week as the sun was nearly at its lowest point in the sky and Clara was working with Cha-Cha during another legilimency lesson, she sensed him.
She sensed that stupid hand.
She heard it begin to whistle through the air, tiny rubber fingers reaching longingly for the side of her face. But she wouldn't let it hit her. Not again. Not today.
She whipped around in her seat.
THWAP
THUNK
The sticky hand fell to the floor as Cha-Cha jumped backwards, crashing into the door-frame behind him. He looked at Clara with wide eyes as he stared down his favorite student, a dart suction cupped to his forehead.
A wicked grin plastered itself across Clara's face as she kept the Nerf gun raised threateningly. She'd been gripping it in her left hand for nearly an hour, double checking that it was loaded every few minutes as she awaited Cha-Cha's attack. It had been difficult to hide as she maintained two different conversations with him and tried to dig around for another memory in his mind, but the satisfaction of watching him get hit in the head was well worth the trouble.
"You've come prepared today, gadis anehku." He openly grinned as he reached up, pulling the dart off his forehead with a little 'pop'.
"My learning is far too important for you to ruin it with toys." She replied, her eyes narrowing with an unspoken threat. She was still grinning ear to ear, but she was over the sticky hands and was positive the Nerf gun was a surefire way to get Cha-Cha off her back.
"I promised I wouldn't make this easy on you," He pushed off of the door-frame, the dart spinning in his fingers as he stalked forward. "But I will admit, I didn't think you'd be willing to play with me."
Clara's grin fell as he laughed, having moved to tower over her. Her plan had failed - she had instead accidentally egged him on.
Damn it. I should've known he wouldn't back down.
Cha-Cha leaned forward, his breath fanning lightly over her ear, just enough for his warm breath to make her shudder.
"Game on."
_________________________________________________
As she restocked her Nerf gun with more blue and orange bullets, Clara found that she was having to remind herself that she wasn't having fun. Planning to shoot her teacher in the forehead during their private lessons wasn't fun. She wasn't taking any pleasure from her previous (and still ongoing, but no less frustrating) annoyance. She wasn't viewing it as some secret inside joke that only they were in on. She didn't see it as something special to them. And she sure as hell wasn't thinking about the next time she'd get to shoot him in the face during classes or when she was supposed to be focusing on doing her homework.
Clara Winter, favored student of Chahaya Arif, had long since chosen her weapon of choice. Though she could have gone for a more familiar suction-cup dart cross bow, she felt that the true way to get the best of Cha-Cha in this stupid little war was through the use of a gun. He had lived in New Orleans for a short period, had he not? It felt a little fitting - he was smacking her with toy hands just like her mother had hit her with her own hands, and Clara was using a gun, when even pureblood muggles knew about the gun epidemic in the United States. Besides, they were weapons meant to kill people, end lives. She wanted this to end, so she chose a gun.
And guns she had.
Clara had found herself in possession of five or so Nerf Gus in the weeks that had followed Cha-Cha's first encounter with a dart. It was clear that he, for his part, greatly preferred the sticky hands still.
"It makes for better control," He insisted as he looped the rubber circle at the end of a sticky arm onto the end of his wand. "And I can feel the connection, unlike with your silly little guns."
"You're a fiend and a scoundrel who enjoys smacking me." Clara countered, feeling a lot more cross than she should have about Cha-Cha's wand allowing him to launch sticky hand toys at her, but not to cast simple spells.
THWAP
A solid connection from the light pink sticky hand attached to Cha-Cha's wand made contact with Clara's face.
An answering scowl from Clara. A never ending smirk from Cha-Cha.
THUNK
A dart suctioned perfectly to Cha-Cha's left ear, just under the curve.
A sick grin from Clara. Narrowed eyes from Cha-Cha.
"Surely you can't think you have a chance against me in games such as this?" Clara raised an eyebrow at Cha-Cha as she leaned back against one of the desks in his classroom. "And certainly not with such shitty weapons."
"I happen to have taken quite a liking to these!" Cha-Cha sounded indignant for all of a moment before breaking, confessing something with the voice of a confidante, a voice Clara had grown to be more familiar with recently. "Besides, this is all that is holding Ricky and I together. He doesn't hate me right now and I'm more than happy to indulge him."
Cha-Cha turned, taking aim and launching a new sticky hand towards the bullseye of a poorly drawn target on the stone wall of his classroom, hitting it without much effort.
"Ricky certainly considers himself to be on your side." Clara muttered, disliking how her tone softened as it always did when she spoke of her old friend. "I'm sure you could request a better toy and he'd oblige."
Ricky and Cha-Cha's relationship had started to turn rocky from her and Cha-Cha becoming friends through the private lessons he gave her. She didn't know if it was jealousy or concern, but as of late both boys were beginning to act normal again. Ricky was passing out the sticky hands to all of the teachers who liked them and wanted more - Cha-Cha included.
Clara emptied a clip from her gun into the bullseye, darts flopping all around the room. Cha-Cha sat down on a high backed chair, sticky handed wand resting on his thigh.
"I'll take what he gives me. He seems excited by the whole ordeal and I won't risk ruining his fun by seeming ungrateful."
Clara's bow furrowed and she leaned back against the desk again, looking to her teacher as the soft light of the sun shone on his face through the drapes. He was watching her lazily, dark eyes lidded and fingers tapping quietly against his thigh.
As the silence stretched out, she reloaded her gun, this time with hot pink bullets that Kiara had gifted her.
"I don't think it will be an easy road getting Ricky to accept me," Cha-Cha confessed. "I think this is a great start. I don't want to hurt his feelings."
Clara didn't look back towards Cha-Cha, focused instead on cleaning away imaginary dirt spots from her Nerf gun. "He's seventeen," she pointed out. "Not five. Marica coddles him, but he'll be fine if you tell him."
That earned a snort from Cha-Cha, causing her to look up and her brow to raise.
"To be coddled by my mother would be a glorious treat indeed." He was no longer watching her, his eyes screwed tightly shut. "To be a normal young boy, even more so."
Clara thought back to the articles she had read about her teacher no longer being allowed back to Indonesia. How lonely it must be to be far away from the only family he had. How it must kill not just him, but his mother to no longer be able to see the son she carried, birthed, and raised.
THWAP
The light pink sticky hand slapped perfectly against her breast, just above the neckline of her modest dress and right above her beating heart.
"Oh, my Sayang Clara, don't let me distract you with my tales of woe." He smirked. Clara couldn't have been thinking 'bitch' any louder in her head towards him than she was right then.
THUNK
THUNK
THUNK
THUNK
THUNK
THUNK
Each shot followed her teacher as he fell out of the chair trying to dodge her bullets, hitting either his forehead or his chest on the way down. Clara fumed, angry he'd gotten the better of her, wondering if he'd shared a moment of weakness with her despite initially using it as a distraction.
Cha-Cha began to cackle from the floor, his earlier expression hidden once more behind a grin.
Clara reloaded her gun.
"I wasn't," she lied. "I just wonder if your mother would forgive me for one day replacing this with a real one."
Cha-Cha gave her a look, one that she knew very well because she herself gave it to people often.
It said 'liar'.
The two of them were forced to learn the intricates of one another during Clara's lessons. There was a lot of push and pull on both sides before they finally were willing to cooperate with the other, both consciously and subconsciously. As a result, not only did she know him pretty well in the same way that he knew her, she'd also come to be able to read his expressions and body language better. He had more ticks and giveaways than she did, but she always thought it was fun to learn them on anyone and told herself that he wasn't a special case just because she learned why he would react instead of how he would thoughtlessly react.
It was as much of a lie as what she'd said a second ago.
"I think we've done enough today." Cha-Cha relented. When Clara didn't lower her gun, still considering putting another one between his eyes, he put two hands up as if to surrender. Slowly, she brought it down. "You've already missed part of dinner because you wanted to debate these-"
"I did not want to," Clara corrected. She bent down at her desk and began to gather her things as she spoke. "I had to. I don't wish to be the one to cheer you up when you realize you are playing in a game that which you will lose."
"Oh, I think you d - neraka, fine."
Clara had straightened back up from her position and had her index finger on the trigger of her gun when Cha-Cha spoke; now he stood with his hands all the way up in the air, looking comically terrified of Clara's good aim and her standing at a close enough distance that both knew the bullets would hurt far more at.
"That's what I thought." Clara purred, turning back and finishing getting her things together. Once she was done putting things neatly in her bag, gun included, she turned around to see Cha-Cha sitting on one of the desks, two away from Clara's. This time she didn't have a name for the expression on his face but she knew what it meant.
"You know, I'd say I can't read minds, but I can thanks to you," She teased lightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Curiously, he followed it with his eyes. She tried to dismiss it as soon as she noticed it. "Want to cut me some slack?"
Clara could see him teetering between asking the question or not, but the fact that he was giving whatever was on his mind any second thought at all told her it was something more serious. Cha-Cha seemed to have caught on to her keen eye and flashed her what anyone else would see as a warm smile - but Clara could see the slight waver of the corners of his mouth and the wrong kind of warmth behind his eyes. Whatever he was thinking about, he didn't want it to ruin the moment.
Clara gave him a look that he knew all too well.
It said 'liar'.
With anyone else Clara would have pushed her luck and risked annoying him into telling her what was up, but when two people knew each other so well through literal mind reading, it came with a level of trust whether the people involved wanted there to be or not. She hated that the only person who trusted her and that she trusted was someone who made her heart and brain so confusing. It felt entirely unfair that the first person she was shown any amount of normalcy and respect by, her body started getting jittery around them. She didn't like that somewhere along the way she began to read into every little thing he did or didn't do, or stress about not allowing herself to think of him at any given moment - in fear of Cha-Cha himself finding something that made him uncomfortable and made their next lessons awkward.
"It is nothing," He promised, this time his voice assuring. Clara knew it to be a lie to some degree, but she knew he meant that either way he meant it as in 'it is not going to be anything that you would stress over', and so she had no choice but to accept it. "Now go eat. I have papers to grade, and I have a feeling yours is the longest one. Again."
This made Clara beam confidently, which made Cha-Cha's smile turn genuine. She resented the fluttery feeling it gave her.
"This one is only two parchments over," She promised, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "but if it were three sentences long, it would still be better than whatever nonsense Cosmo is forcing you to grade."
This brought out a laugh from both of them, because Cosmo's work was always disastrous, and Clara tried to remind herself again as she crossed the room and left, that she wasn't having fun. She wasn't enjoying whatever was going on with her and her teacher. Learning was fun. It wasn't fun to shoot Cha-Cha with a toy because he kept hitting her with a toy. Being successful was fun. It wasn't fun to be the reason he smiled. It-
'Tuhan, I forgot how loudly you think.'
Cha-Cha's legilimency made Clara slam the door behind her.
He laughed. She didn't.
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