#there's a reason i dont generally write fics and certainly do not post them online

[julietcapulct]

breathe, my love, get high hp au, marcus flint/oliver wood 8131 words Marcus counts the days in the hours he can manage to get through, the hours he can spend avoiding floppy-haired, Scottish Gryffindors who try to follow him with their eyes. He doesn’t want to talk about something that will only leave them both burning and rotting in the end. Something that can never be kept safe. A flame that will only die out in the cold. He spends his nights in bed, whispering the name over and over to himself, the name he has kept hidden in his heart for so long and wants to etch all over his skin–– Oliver. Oliver. Oliver. 

notes: this may or may not be the most self-indulgent fic you will ever read in your life, and it’s probably completely ooc and unbelievable and wow i’m not selling this to anyone but yay for flintwood??? yes??? this is dedicated to yenna @owvlery​, erin @mxrcusflint​ and everyone else who makes the beautiful flintwood art/fics/everything that has dragged me into this 6ft hole of cute angsty quidditch boyfriends. (also i stole a line from lolita and managed to reference little mix’s ‘touch’ so u never know what ur going to get with me)(also sufjan stevens was my soundtrack writing this enjoy)

If he were pushed, Marcus could tell himself that it was simply a pride thing.

Because of course, there was an element of it there, quivering in every shove of shoulder against sharp elbow, in the snarls and hisses thrown at one another. From the moment he had looked across the Quidditch pitch, seeing a flash of red and gold as their sprite little second year Keeper blocked the Quaffle again and again and again, his accent clouding over his words as the boy couldn’t help but yell and holler at his teammates with each success, his voice carrying out like a signal, Marcus had felt a rush of something in his veins, and before he knew it his broom was propelling him closer and closer, the Quaffle barely touching his fingertips before he was shoving it towards the hoops, his gaze almost blinded by the boy’s answering grin. A dare, almost. A dance.

He’s thirteen years old and his blood is thrumming in that way that only Quidditch can do to him, and his head is swimming with theories and fleeting thoughts, his legs gripped tightly either side of his broom and God, this is the only thing he knows how to do, only thing that makes him feel real−−

And then two minutes in, the new Gryffindor Keeper gets his head knocked in by a Bludger and the whole thing is called off.

The rest of the team moan and whine as they make their way to the changing rooms, their boots trampling in the mud of the October leaves, red and dirty yellow bleeding into one another and reminding him far too much of the Gryffindor colours.

Wood, someone had called him. The kid who got knocked out, only a year younger than him.

“Guess for someone called Wood, his broom didn’t help him stay off the ground much, did it?” He mutters, his words low and tumbling out with the air of someone of less eloquence; he’s never been witty, never had a way with words, but he tries. His teammates chuckle heartily at the joke, as it stands.

The next time he sees the Wood boy, it’s more than a week later and Marcus raises an eyebrow at the spectacle that seems to be going on at the Gryffindor table, the kid surrounded by his teammates and friends, his robes adorned with pins and medals as if he were a hero of sorts. Ridiculous.

He tries to forget about the fact that his feet scrape on the floor as he makes his way over to the table, seeing each face turn to his, their expressions of laughter and joy quickly souring into something filled with disgust and shock. Only Wood, seated in the middle of his ragtag group, seems to puff out his chest and look up at him with wide eyes, trying to appear confident and bold. Marcus resists the urge to roll his eyes.

He could just walk away, leave them scratching their heads, wondering. But if Wood is a cliché of sorts, so is he.

“Pity you didn’t manage to see more than a minute of the game before you bowed out, Wood,” he says, his words accentuated by his crossed arms and smirk. He plays his part well, as ever. “Although it gives whoever replaces you a nice low standard to beat for the next one, I suppose.”

Wood’s eyes narrow and his nostrils flare in indignation, and he immediately stands up, a couple of Gryffindors coming with him. Even at his full height, Marcus still has a good few inches on him, and it just makes it easier for him to look down with a twisted smile, watching the boy rage internally. One of the girls, her hair in a long braid as she clings to his arm, juts out her chin and replies, “We’re not replacing Oliver, for your information, and we won’t be anytime soon. So you can run and tell your snakes that.”

Whistling low, Marcus doesn’t miss a beat. “Perhaps some food for thought, though, yeah?”

He’s about to walk away with a chuckle, having had his fun and wanting to head to Potions so he can tell Avery about the easy way the Gryffindors can get riled up just by insulting their newly-crowned ‘Golden Boy,’ when the boy in question calls out to him, his voice certain and sure despite the cracks in it.

“I’ll see you on the field, Flint.”

He doesn’t reply, simply keeps on walking out of the Great Hall.

If his fingers clench and unclench several times against his robes on the way to class, knuckles white and calloused, he doesn’t let himself feel it.

   And so a dance of sorts begins between them, both participants riling up to the challenge. Each time they see one another, whether it be behind their respective captains on the pitch before a game, or across a staircase, they end up running toe to toe, insults flying from their mouths so fast Marcus barely thinks about what he’s saying. All he focuses on is making Wood’s lip curl in distaste, to see him spluttering as he tries to sling a comeback in return, lost for words.

There’s a certain sort of addictive quality to leaving Oliver Wood speechless.

He figures it’s innocent enough in the beginning; quips about him being so much younger than him (a full year means a lot to Marcus, okay?) and not as experienced, and perhaps that was why he missed that Quaffle again and again in the last game? Or he takes another direction, and tells Wood he’s possibly taken one too many Bludgers to the head when he stumbles to get off his broom after one match. Sometimes the younger boy only glares at him in return, being pushed along by his teammates, but before long he’s striding towards him to shout comebacks in return, and the game plays on.

“Maybe you should worry about your own team, Flint. Your seeker flies like a newborn deer trying to walk.”

Marcus snickers, showing his teeth as he does. He hopes it terrifies. “Better than your Beaters, I’d say. They couldn’t tell a Bludger from a Bertie Botts Bean. Wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to eat one.”

“Well, unlike you, Flint, they don’t have any troll blood in their family, to do something so idiotic.”

For a moment, he’s left seeing red in the corners of the eyes, and he doesn’t have much of a response other than to snarl back at Wood, who’s still breathing heavily and holding his broom by his side, eyebrows raised as he awaits a response.

And it’s not that he’s insulted, because God, being a Slytherin means having a thick skin and letting everything roll off of your back, and it’s not like he’s fucking insecure. He’s not a Malfoy, prissy and obsessed with appearances and slicked back blonde hair. He’s always been something more in line with rough edges and scabbed lips and dark hair with tugs through it, never really being brushed. Yet, there’s something stinging under his skin that he can’t place.

Before he can bite back something quick and snarky, Charlie Weasley, tall and lanky and redheaded with that stupid grin on his face, sidles up beside them and throws his arm around Wood.

“Wow, Ol, guess you managed to get one over on Flint, here,” a pause, and then with a smirk, “Left him speechless!”

Wood laughs in return, looking away for a moment to meet Weasley’s eyes in a gaze filled with admiration and awe, and Marcus would vomit right there if he felt the need to waste any acid reflux on Gryffindors.

The redhead isn’t finished yet, though. “Tell me, how does it feel to be beaten by a second year?”

Weasley’s leaning over him with a glint in his eyes, like he knows something he shouldn’t, and Wood doesn’t seem to catch it. He’s too busy frowning back at Marcus, his gaze troubled. As if he didn’t want Weasley to say that. That infuriates him even more, because of course Oliver Wood would regret the one time he actually had the guts to not hold back like every other Gyffindor obsessed with being the ‘better’ person.

He doesn’t need the pity, and he certainly doesn’t need Wood to look at him like he wants to say something else.

And so Marcus doesn’t offer him a reply, only moving forward to push his shoulder against Wood’s in a threatening stance, muttering, “You’re mine on that pitch, Wood,” into his ear as he moves past.

(He can still feel the boy’s breath on his skin hours later.)

For a year or two, things are a mundane routine of classes and Hogsmeade and friends and Quidditch and Oliver Wood, all piled into one, rotating and meshing together, smashing into one another faster than a Snitch at high speed to form the fabric of his everyday life.

He seems to see this kid wherever he goes, whether it’s on the way to class, capturing his gaze in a steadfast glare that’s returned in kind, or as he makes his way out of the castle with his classmates, eyes catching sight of tawny-brown hair leading his group to the pitch for more practising. Even as the youngest member of the Gryffindor team, Wood seems to have already decided he’s going to lead, even when he can’t reach the shoulders of his teammates; it’s no surprise when he makes Captain in his fourth year, Marcus thinks, before killing that thought immediately. And there’s his voice too, which seems to find him from wherever Marcus tries to flee, his accent soaking into his mind. He mimics it easily, soon becoming a running joke in the Slytherin Common Room when he wants cheap laughs, but it’s only because he’s heard it enough times to have committed the way he pronounces each syllable, the letters he drags on and the ones he skips over skittishly, the way he speaks a million miles per minute when it’s anything to do with Quidditch.

It’s important to know your enemy, though, and that is why Marcus commits everything about Oliver Wood to memory.

The mishmash of his days, of classes he sleeps through and assignments he leaves until the last minute because he hates the frustration of looking at an empty piece of parchment and not knowing a thing to put on it, to the roar of the crowd as he shoots Quaffle after Quaffle into the hoops all while feeling his eyes fixated on him from the stands, feeling the warmth of their chants wash over him when Slytherin win.

(The relief that comes from knowing, I still have this. I can do this. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.)

And if he’s suddenly hurtling towards OWLs he hasn’t studied for in fifth year because he’s noted that Wood has grown more than should be allowed in two years – still not as tall as Marcus, but enough that their gazes can find one another easily over crowds of kids – and if he once finds himself nearly missing a catch from Pursilla because the sun had hit Wood’s skin at just the right moment as his eyes lit up over a goal, and holy Merlin he’s not breathing right now, but it’s not—he can’t even choke the words out of the recesses of his mind, instead waving a hand to silence the blonde as she yells at him, not letting himself even look at Wood when he throws the Quaffle in the direction of his face, which has managed to chisel out slightly over the summer.

It’s not until he scores, ten minutes later, that he lets himself stop gripping his broom so tightly.

He thought he was safe—okay, he had a close call earlier, but he could blame it on the sunlight. He could mutter away about bad positioning and they probably got Trelawney or some shit to help pick a day for them, so they could pull this, any stupid excuse he can spurt out to keep the rest of them moving, ignoring their raised eyebrows. He doesn’t need this.

Marcus is alone in the changing room, picking at the laces of his boots (sometimes he just enjoys the feeling of the dirt on his skin and the roughness of the clothes against his skin, and he feels a little more grounded, and that’s not weird, okay) when he hears footsteps, stomping, really, and looks up to see a flushed and panting Oliver Wood before him.

He would’ve thought he’d have dreamed him there, if he were the type for sappy shit.

“You’re not allowed in here, Wood,” he drawls, and it comes out more monotonous than he thought, which pleases him. No need to let him know his heavy breathing was making Marcus think of dangerous things.

“I don’t care.”

“I think you will when I call Snape and tell him you’ve snuck in here to try and attack me.”

“Wh—” Wood’s face scrunches up in confusion, before his eyes narrow, still catching his breath. Marcus notes he probably ran straight over here, the idiot. “Shut up, Flint. I’m not here to fight, as tempting as that is.”

Marcus can’t help himself, his fingers dig in a little on his leg, and he can feel his nails through the Quidditch robes. Wood seems to notice, too, his eyes flickering down to his calf for a minute, and he could swear the boy’s face reddens a tinge.

“I, erm, I had to ask you something.” It takes a full minute for him to look up again, and when he does, Wood is standing with his hand scratching the back of his head, his eyes unreadable. Oliver Wood, who is the most predictable and readable person Marcus knows, is standing with an almost frightened gaze at him and it makes him want to shiver.

He takes a deep breath. Play the part, Marcus. “I haven’t got all day,” he replies, and he’s barely finishing the sentence when the boy is speaking again in rushed words—

“Why were you staring at me during the game?”

Fuck.

“No, I wasn’t,” he immediately throws back, and it’s stupid and ridiculous because he was, of course he was, he nearly missed a goal because of it, and he can’t lie right to Wood’s face about it. Not when he looks at him in that open, vulnerable way that twists Marcus up inside in ways he didn’t know was possible.

“Yes, you…you did. I felt you staring.”

They’re staring at one another in that very moment, too, eyes heavy on one another and Marcus knows he should look away, should roll his eyes and murmur, Are you gay now, then, Wood? Fancy me, do you? and walk away. Leave it as a gloating remark and pretend it was nothing. Let him pretend he was just trying to freak him out so they could win. Go on with his life and let himself lock this feeling away, left to rot as memories of this boy and his smile and the curve of his neck haunt him.

And then the moment passes, and he’s snarling out, “I don’t know what you thought you felt, you idiot, but I don’t want it. Leave me alone.”

He’s breathing heavily, and it takes a moment to register that he’s on his feet and a few short steps away from Wood now, and he can see the gold flecks in his eyes now, see the way his pale skin patches in pink where he’s blushed, from the center of his cheeks to around the side of his neck stretching down to his collarbone and Marcus is consumed with the need to just touch, just for a minute.

The patch of skin he’s fixated on gets closer, and his eyes flicker up to see Wood has made the step towards him, his own gaze moving from Marcus’s mouth to his eyes to his hairline, oddly enough, a certain kind of worn yet fond kindness tainting his smile; he’s being so soft, even without touching him, and it makes Marcus want to scream.

“This is okay, you know. This…whatever this is between us.” Wood’s words are barely over a whisper, but he hears. He would hear it from an ocean away. “This isn’t wrong, Marcus.”

It’s him saying his name, his real name, that has him marching out of the door still in his Quidditch robes, leaving one half of his heart behind with flushed cheeks and soft gazes.

   After that, it becomes so much easier to pretend. If he were a different type of person, Marcus ponders one night when he’s had too many smuggled Firewhiskeys in the dungeons and he’s lying alone with his thoughts, he could’ve been an actor. When he has a role – his in question being that of the antagonist, the evil Slytherin who makes children quiver with intimidation when he walks down hallways, the perfect foil to the floppy-haired, charming Gryffindor hero – he can stick to it well enough that there’s no room for anything else.

Wood, on the other hand, seems to want to turn the tables. He doesn’t understand the rules of the game, it seems.

Although fair play to him, Marcus later thinks, he did try. After their moment in the changing rooms, Wood seemed to have committed himself to hating everything about Slytherin, particularly anything to do with him. He doesn’t even call him Flint now, simply glaring at him when they spar verbally on the pitch or through hallways. During games, they play faster and more aggressive now than ever, almost as if they were in their own duel, the others melting away by the sidelines.

He’s complimented for it by his Captain, after one particularly trying game where he managed to help Hyun score not one or two, but three goals in a row by having Wood focus all his attention on him, their eyes never wavering from one another as he fouled again and again. He’s told he ‘has the potential to take Captain’ once Lucinda leaves, and he only grunts in response while his heart hums in something close to contentment.

When it does happen, he throws himself fully into the role, relishing his moment in the sunshine. He’s never particularly been singled out for anything like this before, and not that he would ever admit it to anyone, but there is something calming about the hole Quidditch is starting to fill inside him, the hole that’s been there for as long as he can remember, that being on a broom and orbiting around Oliver Wood seems to soothe and leave trembling as it collapses.

While his game strategies become more efficient and he makes more and more goals, swerving through players without a care for grace and roughly shoving Quaffles at Wood’s face (ignoring the poorly-concealed grin the boy hits him with when he manages to hit him in the nose during one move, his mind whirring between Merlin he’s bad at acting and why the fuck is he grinning at me hitting him like he likes it?) his work in class begins to suffer more and more, not that he cares.

Nothing seems to really matter in the end, when it comes down to it.

Honestly, he’s not even surprised when he doesn’t pass N.E.W.T.s, considering he barely made it to class all year and can’t find much beyond his games to focus on. That still doesn’t seem to stop that ever-sinking feeling in his stomach, of knowing this is all he will be; of knowing he is nothing that can be salvaged or saved or to be acclaimed. In the end, he’ll be but one of a sea of faces who have walked these halls, who have spoken the same words he has and believed they could conquer the world in a sea of glory before hitting the fall.

And so he buries it all, miles and miles below the ground where nobody can find his pain, and he walks onto the Hogwarts Express with his head held high and his wand twitching in his palm, ready to be used on any kid who thinks they can bring him down for this.

He could tear Wood apart when he catches sight of him, because this is not what he needs.

(It’s enough to have to walk through the entire school, them knowing he’s still here, but Wood? There’s shame and fury and heartbreak all bubbling under his skin at the thought of his pity, of his taunting, and he wants to set himself alight than walk through these flames.)

Wood only stares at him from through the glass doors of the train carriage, and his face crumples into something void of pity or triumph, only…warmth. Something so foreign, enough to leave him slack-jawed in the middle of this train, staring back at him and being struck with the desire to barrel into this boy’s arms and never leave. The sensation hits him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and he has to close his eyes before he can grip his wand tighter and force his legs to move away, far away from Wood’s gaze and his inviting arms beneath that stupid Gryffindor jumper.

He can’t take another year of this, he already knows.

To his credit, Wood manages to wait two whole days before tracking him down in the library, where Marcus is burying himself in Charms textbooks; he’s never actually taken the time to look at the assigned reading, but he figures if he doesn’t want to go through seventh year for the third time, he better start. He’s pointedly ignoring the looks he’s receiving from third year Hufflepuffs who are muttering about him, because he can’t get himself banned from the library this early in term, when someone budges the side of his table, spilling his ink slightly.

He looks up to glare at the back of Wood’s head, who doesn’t look back once as he makes his way past another aisle of books and disappearing, his arms swinging as if he doesn’t have a care in the word. Git.

Marcus waits a full six minutes and twenty-four seconds before he looks down and sees the scrap of ripped parchment, a detailed list of the most efficient books and their chapters for passing his subjects.

He has to stop himself from turning the damn table over, because clearly he’s in Hell.

 When he passes his Transfiguration exam after spending three hours in the section of the library Wood’s noted down for him, with McGonagall looking at him suspiciously as she hands him back his parchment as if she doesn’t believe he could do it, well fuck her, Marcus feels something fluttering in the pit of his stomach. His immediate thought is to flatten it.

It’s been building for so long, though, and he thinks to himself, he could allow himself one moment.

He doesn’t allow himself much time to ponder what he’s doing when the thought first comes to mind, because even thinking the words makes him want to slap himself, because it’s so stupid.

He just focuses on the sound of his shoes hitting the floor, left, right, left, right, as he makes his way out of the dungeons.

Marcus has never once thought that he would ever, in a million years, be the one sneaking into the Gryffindor common room. It’s much easier than he would think, considering the lions tend to value too much on stupid things like bravery and standing up for others, things that can have you bleeding out on the ground in an instant. Things Oliver Wood has in abundance, and then some, but he won’t let himself consider that. The Fat Lady is asleep and he’s picked up enough underground spells, things only taught in cold stone walls with green and silver tapestries, that he can sneak in and survey the warm fire.

He doesn’t let himself think about Wood spending hours in front of that fire, what he would look like dozed off in his red and yellow jumper, because he doesn’t hate himself that much. Not yet.

He can’t let himself go any further, so he simply takes out the precious, fragile piece he’s kept in the pocket of his robes, and charms it to find Wood, wherever it is he sleeps. Marcus knows if he let himself get that close, to see him in such a state of undress, warm and consumed by sleep, he’d drive himself mad.

(And there’s another part of him, whispering all the time, telling him that he doesn’t want it to be like this. He wants to see Wood happy and content in sleep, but he wants to be offered it. To see Wood give himself up like that, all for Marcus.)

Before he can regret it, he’s running back through the entryway and doesn’t stop until he’s back in familiar territory, and for the first time since he was eleven years old, the dungeons feel too cold.

The next morning, Marcus is deliberately not looking over at the Gryffindor table, moodily moving his eggs around on his plate while beside him Thruston is droning on about another girl he’s been trying to woo that he’s already mentally checked out of listening to, and when he finally can’t stop himself from flickering up to look over, he has to bite down on his lip so hard he feels the skin break, warm blood on the bottom of his two front teeth.

Oliver Wood is sitting beside his friends, looking as if he doesn’t even see Marcus, laughing at some joke that’s being passed around— and on the table in front of him is the fluttering paper bird that Marcus had left for him, levitating just a centimetre or two above the wooden table above bowls and plates, gentle and delicate and everything that Marcus is not. He wouldn’t believe it had came from his hands himself if he didn’t have the sting of the paper cuts still on his fingers.

His heart is threatening to burst, and he has to close his eyes before his glass of pumpkin juice smashes on the concrete floor

 They don’t speak about it, because there is nothing to speak about, he tells himself.

Wood just likes him around because he keeps him on his toes. Nothing more.

They still bite at one another in taunts, their hands gripping tighter and tighter each time they’re forced to shake before a game, trying to break one another’s fingers. He can easily memorise the feeling of every scrape and bump in the man’s hand, knows how it curves around his own, can close his eyes and feel the warmth flood over his palm once more.

He rarely allows himself to indulge in these moments, because that’s what it is –– a guilty, awful pleasure that he knows he shouldn’t want, that he shouldn’t slowly be growing addicted to. Oliver Wood is the most ridiculous, incredulous, bull headed, ill-tempered creature he’s ever laid eyes on, and he wants nothing more than to keep him all to himself, away from anything that could take that blinding, dazzling passion away for even a moment.

He could ruin this boy, and that’s exactly why he fights every spark in his fingertips threaded against his.

“Hey, Flint, want to remind your Chasers which direction their hoops are in? Not that I mind them giving us points, but I figure coaching your team for you as well as mine actually gives me a bit of competition, but I don’t want to have to do your dirty work for you,” Wood’s voice is bright and loud and entirely not what he needs at eight in the morning, but he still almost leans towards it, following its sound as he walks around Marcus, stopping directly before him.

He’s smirking, dressed in his colours and looking entirely too good in them, his chest puffed up and his gaze locked.

Marcus hears Bennett and Doe’s outcries behind him, but ignores it. He doesn’t seem to give a thought to much else other than shooting back, “Don’t worry, Wood, I’ll just tell them to look for your giant head and they’ll know where to go.”

And he’s expecting a comeback of sorts, but instead, the boy just laughs, a great big belly laugh that seems to light him up from within as he shows his teeth, eyes gleaming and it’s all directed towards Marcus, of all people, and he’s not sure how to react to that. Potter is looking at him with raised eyebrows, and he hears a Weasley twin mutter something about ‘Oliver finally going off the deep end,’ but he’s not concerned with much more than capturing every second of this state Wood has himself in, his own gaze flickering over every inch of him because he’s not sure he’ll ever see him like this again, and he’s a desperate man.

By the time Wood composes himself, Marcus already has his hand outstretched.

“Or maybe they’ll just hear your foghorn of a laugh, considering you never shut up during games.” He shouldn’t still be speaking, but he wants to keep him here as long as possible, to savour this.

Wood chuckles again, his nails scratching at the edges where the leather of Marcus’s gloves expose his fingers as they push against each other’s palms. “I have to keep you looking somehow, don’t I?”

He’s walking away in a second, and Marcus is left standing with shaking fingers and stares stamped onto his back. He doesn’t even look at them. He’s just as confused as they are, quite frankly.

Marcus wakes up on the day of the final Quidditch match of his Hogwarts career with something undefinable fluttering in his chest.

He doesn’t say a word as he marches down to breakfast with the rest of his team, huddled at one side of their table, and he doesn’t once lift his eyes to catch Wood’s gaze, although he can feel it burning on his skin, making him itch. Malfoy notices, his peroxide-blonde hair gelled back in a way that makes Marcus want to push him off the Astronomy Tower.

“You want me to say something, Flint? He’s trying to freak you out.”

Marcus snaps, “Shut up and eat your toast, if you want to beat Potter. You’ll need it.”

And then within a flash he’s got his hand in Wood’s, looking down to see green and silver encased in red and gold; he wants to cling on for dear life, can feel his fingers fluttering between Wood’s, wanting to twist and scratch and do something to mark that this is real. One look up, and he knows Oliver Wood feels the same. This is what it’s all come down to, from that first match as a lanky third year watching this boy bounce through the air, knocked out of flight with one snap.

The moment is over before he can breathe out, and he sees a glint of something in Wood’s eyes, like he wants to keep holding on, too. Like he knows how difficult this is for him.

Within fifteen minutes, Wood’s been hit by a Bludger, and Marcus would actually laugh out loud if he had the time to, because he’s always been a cliché, hasn’t he? Start with a Bludger, end with a Bludger.

There’s something else there, though, in his gut, something gnawing and thrashing and pushing him to fly over to where Wood is trying to regain his balance, hoping nobody notices just how much he’s leaning over to see if the man’s okay. By the time Wood is flying again and trying to look back at him, Marcus is gone, keeping himself on the other side of the pitch to pass.

It’s another four minutes before the second Bludger comes, and he can almost feel the jolt in his own stomach as he watches Wood go down again. He can’t even react in time to stop himself flying over, hovering too high above where his heart has dropped to the ground with the broken boy lying there in the grass, muddy and groaning and ripping at every edge of him. One Bludger is enough to keep him still up, but two? Marcus could kill him, if he weren’t too busy trying to stop himself from taking him into his arms every second of the day.

He keeps himself in the air, although half of him isn’t there on the pitch at all.

Gryffindor wins, and Marcus can’t force himself into feeling anything.

Everything he’s worked for has been for the Cup, for the title, for the one thing that he actually can do in this world. He’s not handsome, and he’s not sharp; he’s not smart in the slightest, and he’s not particularly good with a wand. All he can do is fly and pass and chase, and in the end? It meant nothing.

He tells himself that over and over, staring at Oliver Wood on the shoulders of the Weasley twins, shining in his uniform with his broad shoulders and his assured smile, his eyes wide as if he can’t believe it either, and he’s chanting along with his team and the stands. Marcus doesn’t think he’s ever seen something so beautiful, and then Wood looks over directly at him and beams at him, the sun beating down on him like he’s some sort of God, and Marcus could die right there and be happy with what he has been given in this miserable life, just to look up at that face.

He keeps his expression blank, however, and returns to the ground quickly, leaving the rest of his team to deal with a petulant Malfoy.

Once again, he’s back in the changing rooms when Wood comes to find him, although he’s fully dressed and is trying to re-do his tie in the small mirror levitating beside him at the correct angle. He doesn’t even look up, although he knows exactly who it is and that he’ll still be dressed in his Quidditch robes like last time, having spent the last hour or so running through the castle, shouting and dancing and shining like the goddamn sun that Oliver Wood is. Like he can stop himself.

(Like Marcus could stop himself from being burned.)

Wood clears his throat, and his voice is fond when he speaks. “You played a good game, Flint.”

He snorts. “You don’t need to gloat, or worse, give commiserations, idiot. This isn’t a kid’s league.”

There’s silence, and he looks up to find Wood gazing at him once more, although he’s frowning now. He’s chewing his bottom lip as if he’s in deep contemplation, and Marcus wants to both snap at him and drag him into his space. He has to stop himself from moving forward from doing either of the two, gritting his teeth and running a hand through his air, as if holding onto something else will stop him.

“You’re still here,” he notes, raising an eyebrow. “What do you want?”

Of all the things Marcus could have imagined, he would never have let himself even dare to think of Wood striding towards him and roughly grabbing his shoulders, smashing their lips together.

It’s like an untamed fire let out once they finally kiss, something within Marcus finally being set free that he had tried to restrain for so long, so long, and he lets out a cry of sorts as he snakes his fingers around Wood’s wrists, squeezing them and pushing their bodies flush together. The Gryffindor moves his own hands through Marcus’s hair, latching on as if he were to never let go, licking the inside of his mouth and biting into the skin of his bottom lip.

Within moments they’re pressed up against the wall, and Wood wastes no time in pushing up against him and moving his lips against his own once more. It’s rough and coarse, hands shaking as they brush against one another, and when Marcus pulls back to lean his head against the wall and try to regain his breathing, he swears he hears Wood whine against his lips, before he’s already moving across his jaw, biting and nipping and licking until he’s on his neck, and Fuck, this man will be the death of him––

“Merlin, Wood,” he murmurs. “Who knew you had a good use for that mouth of yours.”

There’s something that can only be described as a full-on growl against the skin of his neck, and Marcus can’t help the shiver that runs through his spine as Wood pulls back to lean his forehead against his, breath ghosting over him.

His voice is low when he replies, “Oliver. Call me Oliver.”

Marcus wants to scoff at first, because this isn’t a romance or anything, but then Wood is pulling away so he can look into his eyes, soft and begging beneath the fire. “Please,” he whispers. “I need to hear you say my name.”

Could he?

Looking into this boy’s glazed over eyes, shining with lust, feeling his mud-stained fingers scrabbling at his shirt and the fabric of their trousers pressed together, Marcus feels himself swallow, never looking away from Oliver Wood staring at him like he’d cross Neptune itself to hear him just speak his name. Just once.

He wants to say no more than ever, because he knows if he lets himself say that name, whisper it against Wood’s lips, he’ll be jumping headfirst into something that could rip his skin from him and leave him exposed, vulnerable to the world and to Wood himself, more than anything. He’d be dunking his head into freezing cold water, opening his mouth and screaming into the void; untamed, undefinable, all-consuming. He’d never be able to step back.

He decides to fling himself over the edge.

“Oliver,” he says, and it’s only because Wood is so close to him, so close his name is dragging along his jaw, that he can hear it on his tongue. Marcus immediately closes his eyes once he does so, not wanting to see whatever is on Wood’s face, but then the nose on his jawline is moving across his cheek to nuzzle against his own nose, urging him to open his eyes. When he does, he loses his breath at the sight of Oliver Wood, wide-eyed and looking at him with a devotion that could very well be the end of Marcus.

He doesn’t speak. He tells him everything he can’t say with his lips, instead.

 Somehow, Wood becomes Oliver.

It’s only in his head, however. Marcus spends the last week of his time at Hogwarts before he has to leave glaring at him across doorways, stomping on his foot when they pass one another, making rude gestures during dinner. Oliver only responds with a smirk, nothing that would make anyone who didn’t know suspect a thing; he usually did so in retaliation, after Bell or some other Gryffindor Chaser had convinced him that they should ‘take the high road and not stoop to the Slytherin’s level.’

Only Marcus can see the softening in his brown eyes, can see the glint of his teeth when it catches his bottom lip as their gaze meets for a moment too long. It makes him want to hide, to run far from the Great Hall, preferably into the Forbidden Forest with the cool night air, to let himself melt into the darkness. Instead of slowly becoming undone right there in full view under Oliver Wood’s gaze, so warm and familiar when it shouldn’t be. When he has no right to make him feel like this.

They don’t speak of the kiss, in fact, they don’t even approach one another in the last days of their time at Hogwarts. Marcus counts the days in the hours he can manage to get through, the hours he can spend avoiding floppy-haired, Scottish Gryffindors who try to follow him with their eyes. He doesn’t want to talk about something that will only leave them both burning and rotting in the end. Something that can never be kept safe. A flame that will only die out in the cold.

He spends his nights in bed, whispering the name over and over to himself, the name he has kept hidden in his heart for so long and wants to etch all over his skin–– Oliver. Oliver. Oliver.

The thing is, he’s well aware, as everyone else in this place is, that Wood’s been offered a reserve spot on Puddlemere United, swooped up in the roar of the Cup victory and snatching him just as easily as if it were destined. Which, perhaps it was, Marcus thinks to himself; Oliver Wood is storybook hero, one even Beedle the Bard would be proud of have conjured up, perfect even in his folly. He’s well aware of who he is, too, and so he’s okay with the uncertainty of the future before him, the whispers of Dark Marks and Death Eaters possibly reforming and family businesses and engagements to nice young girls thrown at him, never even letting him blink before he’s been shunted into the life of his father and his father before him.

That is why Marcus doesn’t let himself burn over in jealousy when he sees Oliver walk through the halls with people clapping his back and congratulating him, professors ranting on about his bright future, his smile threatening to blind. No, he always knew it would end this way, and he’s…he’s not happy, because he’s not sure he’s ever felt truly happy the way he’s heard others speak of it, but seeing Oliver Wood like this is pretty damn close.

He doesn’t even look up when he feels Oliver move behind him, tap his fingers in three little dots, one, two, three, on the back of his jumper before taking off through the door and out of the Great Hall. Marcus leaves himself a good seventeen seconds before he gets up to follow, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve because he’s not a gentlemen at all, and he doesn’t want to be.

They keep walking, leaving enough space behind them that he lets Oliver out of his sight for a good few seconds before he catches up, all the way down to the dungeons, and he’s raising his eyebrows as they stop in a deserted classroom, the only light coming through from the high window above them and shedding down to highlight the gold in Oliver’s eyes, because if this isn’t the most beautiful torture, he’s not sure what is.

Oliver stops, and Marcus can see his fists clench before the boy’s turning around to face him, and his face is pale and entirely unlike the expressions warming them earlier. His own eyebrows furrow, trying to figure out what this is.

“Are…” He stutters, starts again. He’s not going to break down. “What do you want, Wood?”

Using his last name seems to flicker a switch in the man before him, and his eyes glaze over with something Marcus doesn’t want to spend time analysing. It would only break his heart into even sharper edges than it already has.

“Erm,” he begins, and his voice is husky and strained and fuck. “I guess, I just…you know about Puddlemere, don’t you?”

So he was just coming to boast?

Marcus rolls his eyes, because it’s a defence mechanism that hasn’t failed him yet. “Yes, Wood, we’ve all heard about your lovely little job set up for you. So you don’t have to rub it in my face, I get it.”

None of what he’s saying is true, because it was never a competition, not really. Maybe when they were younger, when he wanted to show his dominance over this burning piece of light that threatened to up-end him and leave him dangling by a thread, but not now. Not with the respect and the awe and the fondness that radiates between them.

He sees Oliver start to move, to take a hesitant step or two forward, so close he could reach out and touch, just one touch and Marcus is shaking as he stands, speaking again in a rough whisper that betrays too, too much.

“Don’t touch me. I’ll die if you touch me.”

Oliver stops directly in front of him, his face only centimetres away, so close Marcus can smell the cologne and the sweat and everything that makes him want to push himself over into the abyss and drown in this boy, lap up the waves and lose control. Instead, he simply closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath when he feels scabbed over hands cradle his jaw, a feather-light touch that could be the end of him.

A second of silence, and then everything bursts into colour when Oliver kisses him.

It’s the opposite of last time, in all the ways Marcus could never believe. He could never have thought that he and Oliver Wood would have anything resembling something so soft, but here they are, curling into one another against the wall as the boy before him continues stroking his face, his lips never demanding. As if they have all the time in the world.

As if he isn’t about to leave him.

It stops too soon, and Merlin, Marcus is embarrassing enough that he actually chases Oliver’s lips when he moves back a step, which elicits a small smile from the boy. They’re still close enough that their breath mingles, and he feels dizzy and light and entirely unlike himself.

(Or perhaps more like himself than he’s ever felt before.)

“I couldn’t have done this without you,” Oliver is whispering in his ear, his eyes frantically searching Marcus’s face as if he needs him to know this. “Everything…everything is because of you, because you made me better.”

He has to close his eyes again because this can’t be real, these words are not real. He is not being held up by this shining, beautiful boy who has not been made for him to ruin and take, and he is not falling harder and faster with every word he says, with every look that leaves him scared and naked but never alone, never with Oliver. Marcus can’t say a thing in return, can only let out something that he doesn’t want to call a whimper because that would make him want to die on the spot, and clutches at Oliver’s robes as tight as he can, a sign of Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go. Please.

It’s not until he’s being held in Oliver’s strong arms and hears his voice again, “No, baby, no, I’ll never leave you,” that he realises he said it all out loud, and Marcus lets out a shuddering sob.

They stay like that for longer than he can count, and he doesn’t let himself try to. He only focuses on the strands of Oliver’s hair that curl at the back of his neck, twisting his fingers between them and pressing his lips to the curve where his neck ends and his shoulder begins in something that isn’t a kiss, trying to fit himself into him the way he wants to, as impossible as it is. Oliver doesn’t seem to mind, cooing and shushing him every time the tears begin again, and it’s almost not embarrassing simply because it’s him, who never seems to look at Marcus with anything other than admiration and awe and respect.

Even when they hated one another, he still looked at Marcus as something to be revered. To be taken with.

He’s finally being taken apart, piece by piece, and put back together by this boy with his rough hands and his sharp accent and his twinkling eyes, his pulse that he whispers beats only for Marcus as he takes him back to his dormitory, because it’s our last week and I’ve had the fantasy of having you up here for at least three years, Flint, and when he’s being bundled up in long limbs with red and gold stitched onto the arms of pyjamas, Marcus tries not to let himself sleep, even when his eyes weigh down and Oliver’s voice is telling him to dream, to dream of them and the future and the possibilities, can’t you see them, baby?

Nothing can compare to his reality right now, he knows.

(If Wood insists on being a cliché, he has to be, too.)

#owvlery #mxrcusflint #flintwood #flintwood fic #idk!!! what this is!!! help me!! #fics #there's a reason i dont generally write fics and certainly do not post them online #pls ignore this its awful and goes nowhere wow

[bigskydreaming]

Im asking this genuinely so pls dont yell at me; when you say that those using trigger warnings dont care about their readers’ mental health and wellbeing, what else are trigger warnings supposed to be for? To make sure people don’t enter fics that have material that would harm them. Just like tv shows that warn about nudity or violence or what have you. Its a rating system, theyre warnings. Tagging for rape or underage ARE the looking-out-for-readers thing. Past that, it is on readers to decide

I try not to yell at anyone engaging in good faith, I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but I would rather be engaged with than ignored...the latter is when my volume goes up, lol.

But in answer to your question, it comes down to the fact that trigger warnings are well established enough in fandom by now, that they exist as a kind of social contract.

In short, its EXPECTED that you provide trigger warnings, and that if you don’t have them, someone will bring that up at some point.

Problem is, this counter-productively works against what trigger warnings are actually FOR.....once we reach a point (which we’ve long since reached)....where a lot of people are only including the trigger warnings because of the social contract that expects them to have them, and not ACTUALLY because they’re prioritizing their readers’ well-being.

Something I see a LOT after trigger warnings is the phrase or sentiment “enter at your own risk”....and the phrasings are so, so key to what I’m talking about. 

Take a small sampling and just look for what I’m describing and I’m fairly certain you won’t have to go far to find an example of a fic where the tone of the author is not one of concern for readers, but preemptive concern for potential backlash from readers.

And these are two very different things.

Like, we all know how to read and interpret tone and nuance. Its genuinely not that hard to tell the difference between a sincere expression of wanting readers to be aware of potentially triggering content, and a faux-expression of that when really, the only thing you’re worried about triggering is a negative reception from people, and you want to get ahead of that by making it clear from the get go that hey, you did your job, you warned readers, and thus nobody has any grounds to say anything about your content itself.

Because also too there’s the fact that trigger warnings are inherently fallible. They rely on the author’s own AWARENESS of their content and everything it might include......but a racist author isn’t going to place a trigger warning for using their characters as mouthpieces for even blatant white supremacist ideology. 

A genuinely predatory author (and yes, they absolutely do exist, and its willful stubbornness that people rely on to pretend that like, for some bizarre reason, only genuinely predatory people don’t partake in this otherwise global hobby of reading and writing fiction, like what even is that, how do you arrive at that conclusion, that like, actual pedophiles are so busy preying on ‘real life’ teenagers in their zip code 24/7 that they just don’t have TIME to go online and cultivate predatory relationships with real life teenagers via social media? That doesn’t make any sense!)

But anyway, a genuinely predatory author, is absolutely NOT going to tag or place trigger warnings for pedophilia, etc....because they don’t WANT the things they write perceived that way.

People trying to normalize incest are not always going to tag for incest because they want to DISTANCE the cute, sweet dynamic between two ‘only sorta brothers’ as other than the kind of incest that destroys families...regardless of the reality that most cases of incest are the LATTER and its the FORMER that’s so rare it barely exists. 

And that sort of thing is how we get terms like dub-con and pseudo-incest and ‘consensual underage sex’ when its describing a relationship between a minor and adult....because this is mitigating, distancing language. Its entire reason for existing is to make unpalatable content seem more palatable.

And especially in Batfandom, we KNOW this.

Because we all, practically universally, give Devin Grayson crap for describing the rape in Nightwing #93 as ‘nonconsensual sex’ and go.....THATS NOT A THING!

And then half of fandom turns around and....acts like that and similar stuff...IS A THING.

That doesn’t work! LOL. It just...doesn’t.

Or another example, because abuse can be just as triggering as rape.....like, for me, personally, I’m a survivor of both, and yes, both CAN be triggering. But not as much as people might think....like, just reading a depiction of these things doesn’t trigger me.

Its, like you were saying at the get go, yes, a matter of surprise.....the kind of thing that CAN be warned for, and prepared for, and its the sheer unexpectedness that’s usually the trigger. 

Like.....I went off a few weeks ago about reading a story that was supposed to be about Dick’s brothers learning the truth about what led him to take the Spyral mission and what happened in Forever Evil. That’s what the summary said, that was it, that was the only thing it led me to expect about the story. So understandably, I go into the story expecting it to be sympathetic to Dick. I’m looking for catharsis from it honestly, a salve for the many fics and canon events that blamed and punished him for something I don’t consider his fault, right?

And then towards the end....I get Jason punching Dick again, before hugging him, because that’s just how he reluctantly shows love or whatever.

This genuinely triggered me, yeah. Its why I got so upset about it. Because I was blindsided, I had no way to prepare for it, because I went in expecting catharsis for a story that bothered me due to its victim blaming, and instead I got the author heaping on more of the same abuse we already saw in canon.....with zero awareness that’s what she was doing. 

So....that’s absolutely something I wrestled with should I message the author and ask them to add a trigger warning or not? Because I genuinely could have used one. It would have helped. I would have avoided that story if I had any notion that might crop up in it, because frankly, that’s not something I had any interest in reading.

But problem is, there’s only really two realistic outcomes there. If she was open to hearing a genuine request for her to be aware that her content contained triggering material for a reader....chances are, she probably would have just edited it and taken that out entirely. It was just one line. Easy enough to do. It certainly didn’t add anything.

Problem is....there’s an equal and opposite likely outcome....that she’d get defensive, call this unsolicited criticism, and double down on the idea that what she had written wasn’t abuse, because obviously she doesn’t condone abuse, so she wouldn’t have written that plain and simple. It has to be acknowledged that a lot of authors ARE innately defensive about social content in their work, and not open to hearing they’ve done something offensive or triggering....because that’s like...literally the basis of the ‘no unsolicited criticism’ movement in fandom, even though being critical of toxic ideology expressed in content is NOT the same as offering criticism of someone’s writing in general. 

So you see what I mean? A trigger warning COULD genuinely help in that situation....but our fandom environment simply flat out is not conducive for readers to be at all confident that they even CAN come forward and alert an author that they delved into an offensive, even harmful take with their content and be well received no matter HOW they phrase it....

For much the same reasons I mentioned in that other post. People are more likely to instinctively jump to the defense of the person WRITING the content that offended or did actual emotional harm....than the person simply trying to say, backed by their own lived experience of....being offended or experiencing emotional harm....hey, this is a problem for me and I would appreciate it being regarded as such....

Otherwise, what is even the POINT of this entire system of trigger warnings in the first place? If a problem for a reader isn’t regarded as worthy of attention in and of itself.....at least, not in comparison to whatever problem that READER’S problem creates for the WRITER.

You see what I’m saying? For this, and a lot of other reasons, trigger warnings are innately fallible. They rely on an honor code system, and the uncomfortable truth is none of us are actually naive enough to believe everyone in fandom is innately honorable enough to honor that....if they were, would we have as much cases of anon hate, spite fics, etc?

But fandom as a whole looked at the trigger warning system and decided well....its good enough. Because its not like I’m proposing a viable alternative, its not like I have a BETTER system in mind, offhand. All I do have is the point that well...no...its NOT good enough as is....because for a ton of reasons, there’s a ton of cases in which there’s a ton of people for which it flat out doesn’t work for or benefit at all.

But when this comes up to any degree, in any capacity whatsoever....and the only thing people fall back on is well, I tagged it, or I used trigger warnings what more do you want, or its good enough for me so that’s what matters, or just....

“I did what I was supposed to per the social contract about trigger warnings, so if anything goes wrong in your reading experience at this point, that’s entirely on you.”

Like, does that make sense?

Basically, there’s a world of difference between:

This is a problem that still needs solving because the solution provided now is not all-encompassing or inclusive....

And....

This is a problem that’s already been solved as far as I’m concerned, and I’m utilizing that solution so any further problems are just in the mind of the reader and have nothing to do with reality, let alone me and my work.

Again, as I said above....its the difference between genuinely engaging with other members of your fandom community with actual concern for THEIR fandom experience.....or faking engagement with other members of your fandom community when your only real concern is YOUR fandom experience, and at most, the experiences of anyone who already is of like minds to you on a subject.

Hopefully that answers your question or clarifies my stance there, anon. And thank you for actually engaging on this. It feels a bit like shouting into the void a lot of the time, lol.

[sapphicscholar]

your fics are helping me get through the shittiest breakup right now, so thank you. I know you probably have a million prompts but would you be interested in writing a story where maggie is having a really dark day and feeling really depressed/worthless within herself (either because of internalised homophobia, past trauma etc) and alex takes care of her? maybe even some soft tearful smut later?

Hey, I hope you’re doing alright! I’m sorry it’s taken me a little while to get to this prompt (I didn’t want to do a shitty job when my focus was so divided with work and applications). Sending all the best thoughts your way! It’s now posted to AO3.

Author notes:

CW on homophobia, abusive families, anxiety/depression, etc.

A/N: Now that we’re in the thick of the holiday season, I’ve gotten a few asks for chosen family and hurt/comfort. I know it can be really hard dealing with family (or making the perfectly legitimate choice not to but seeing posts on social media that make it seem like everyone else has a loving, supportive biological family). No matter what choice you make (and I know sometimes there really isn’t a choice, depending on the situation), I’m sending you all the best thoughts. I hope you’re able to make time for yourself, even if it just means finding a quiet room to be alone for a little bit, maybe some wifi to catch up on gay af fanfic or cute puppy gifs, which I’ll try to post in spades over the break when I have time to be on my phone or computer. There are links to resources here as well.

A/N 2: Regarding a few lines in this fic: Obviously not all religion is inherently homophobic, nor do I think anyone smart and scientific (e.g. Alex) must necessarily be an atheist. But I think for so many of us who were raised Catholic (fun foreshadowing here for the nerd notes at the end today), religion was something that shaped our upbringing in an often profound way and was then thrown back in our faces when we came out. Are there Catholics who don’t follow the Church on its teachings about LGBTQ issues? Of course. But, for instance, the fact that my family happened to be supportive of LGBTQ rights in a general way didn’t mean that I wasn’t terrified of coming out to them; it didn’t exempt me from years of internalized shame after hearing priests and religion teachers teaching that homosexuality was an intrinsic disorder of the soul; and it certainly didn’t save me from the humiliation of having to write that gay sexuality was a sin on a test to get an A, of knowing that I put the jobs of my family members who worked for the Church at risk just by being out, of being forced back into the closet to serve as a teacher at a Catholic high school. And even with all of that, I had it easy (and I certainly had it much easier than my fiancée), which I say not to guilt anyone who is still religious, but to explain the perspective from which I’m writing in advance.

Resources:National Domestic Abuse Hotline (online and phone options): http://www.thehotline.org/

US and International Hotlines for a variety of causes: https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/167199297270/dont-ever-hesitate-reblog-this-tumblr-rule

Self-Harm Resources:http://myresourcemasterlist.tumblr.com/selfharmhttp://self-care-club.tumblr.com/post/139740925552/giant-self-help-masterposthttp://chooserecovery.tumblr.com/post/64162912692/ultimate-self-injury-recovery-masterpost

Suicide-specific resources:https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/https://themighty.com/suicide-prevention-resources/(For ones that link outside of the US):https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/164643935260/selfharm-surviver-holybadbitch98https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/164329606770/uie-fuwaprince-us-helplines-depression

Chapter Text:

“Are you and Maggie doing anything for Christmas?” Kara asked, popping another handful of popcorn into her mouth as she nudged Alex, who had started to nod off during the last episode of The Walking Dead.

“Hmm?”

“Christmas—what are you doing?”

“Oh,” Alex sighed, pulling herself up and rubbing at her eyes. “I don’t know. I mean…I know Maggie used to celebrate it with her family, but obviously that hasn’t been the case in years.”

“Right, right.”

“And it’s not like she goes to church at all these days.”

“I mean…you’re not exactly religious, but we still do Hanukkah with Eliza.”

Alex shook her head. “It’s different, I think. I was never religious; it was always more about…I don’t know, being with family and having something in common. I thought mom might be disappointed in me for being gay, but I never thought her reasoning would be that God said it was bad or anything like that.”

“Right,” Kara conceded. “But it might still be nice to celebrate together—you know, build new traditions.”

“I kinda fucked up with that whole thing on Valentine’s Day,” Alex sighed. Sure, they’d talked eventually and found a way to celebrate, to reclaim memories that had hurt Maggie for so many years. But Alex didn’t want to try to surprise Maggie this time and risk dredging up buried trauma once more. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to her.”

Closing her eyes, Maggie blinked back hot tears that threatened to fall. She focused on her breathing: Breathe in—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—hold—1, 2, 3—exhale—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. She fumbled to take off her watch, finding her pulse and focusing on its too fast beat, waiting for it to slow in time with her deep breathing. She ignored the clock, ignored the reminders of how soon Alex would be home, how weak she would look sitting at the kitchen counter and crying over a piece of paper—a stupid Hallmark greeting card with some trite bullshit scrawled across it in fake cursive.

Of course, the card itself hadn’t set her off. It was the hand-written note inside. The sight of the same handwriting that had adorned the rare note in her lunchbox in kindergarten was what had left her eyes stinging, not the vague platitudes about having a very merry Christmas and an even happier New Year. As she read, she was overcome with surges of anger and sorrow and a guilt that she had never quite been able to shake, no matter how much “pride” she claimed.

She tried to seize on the anger—the rage and frustration that she’d used as motivation to succeed: to do well enough in school to get herself out of that small Nebraska town; to do well enough in college to keep her scholarship; to do well enough in the academy to guarantee her a job, even as a non-straight, non-white woman. And there was plenty of it. Anger at her father’s suggestion that her family had always been there for her, as though they hadn’t left her alone at her aunt’s house with barely enough clothing for the week. Rage at this idea that she had been the one to wrong the family simply by living her life honestly and authentically, that she had ruined something otherwise perfect by being herself. Frustration at the phrase, “your friend,” as though her father hadn’t stormed out of their bridal shower precisely because Alex was so much more than just a friend, as though he hadn’t forced her out of her home and family as a mere child because her feelings for Eliza exceeded the bounds of friendship.

But then there was the photo of all of the cousins and nieces and nephews she’d never met. There were sentences about just how much older everyone had gotten, the sickness and bad times they’d been through without her there, the deaths she’d never known about, let alone mourned. Because she’d already done that��mourning the loss of a family that still existed—but not for her. Not with her.

It still got to her, still struck her with a guilt that felt like it could wrench her open, could undo everything she’d worked for, could tear down every inch of progress and confidence and sense of self she’d fought to build for herself.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they were all right. Maybe she was selfish—selfish for putting herself and her desires above her family, the people who had raised her, who had sacrificed their lives to try to make hers better.

And there was another voice—much quieter, harder to hear, harder to believe—that seemed to call back, to tell her that she was worth it, that her life wasn’t worth sacrificing on the altar of bigoted beliefs, no matter who else worshiped there. She thought the voice sounded an awful lot like Alex’s, and its echoes, the voices of her new family: M’gann and J’onn and James and Kara and Eliza and Winn and everyone else who had come together to prove to her that she had people in her corner even when she felt most alone and least worthy of love.

But they were just that: voices. And in the face of the letter, its words right there, her fingers able to trace over them, feel the indents where her father had pressed down just a little harder, those marks and proof of a family that existed in reality—a family she could barely even think of as family anymore—those voices advocating for her faded to the background, drowned out in a chorus of self-loathing so overpowering she could barely manage to stagger toward the bed, her deep breathing long forgotten.

—

Alex found her there nearly an hour later. Her body was rigid, trembling every so often but otherwise catatonic. She looked as pale as Alex had ever seen her, and there were tear tracks streaked across her cheeks, her eyes puffy and rubbed raw from the harsh swipe of her shirt sleeves. Her fingers were clenched into fists, and her short nails were leaving deep moon-shaped imprints in her palms.

“Maggie!” Alex called out, rushing forward. She’d seen her like this once before—just once—and it had terrified her as much then as it did now. Remembering her DEO training, she forced herself to stay calm, to detach herself from the situation and let her medical instincts take over.

“Hey, Maggie, it’s me, Alex,” she said, her voice low and even as she knelt down on the ground next to her, pulling out the bottle of water she carried with her in her bag and putting it beside Maggie on the bedside table. “You okay if I sit here?”

Maggie managed to get herself to nod.

“Great. And if that changes, I can move, okay? I’m going to stay with you, but I can be a little farther away, or I can get closer if you want.” She paused to let Maggie process. “Do you think you can breathe with me?”

“It’s not helping,” Maggie forced out, her teeth chattering shut.

“Maybe if we do it together, it’ll help a little, okay?” Alex murmured. “Can I put a blanket on you?” Seeing the nod of assent, Alex pulled out the fluffiest blanket they had—the one with no tags, no rough patches or odd seams, the one that Maggie had wrapped around her after everything with her dad and Cadmus—and carefully draped it over Maggie, taking care not to tuck it under her, lest she feel trapped. Feeling how cold Maggie was to the touch, she slipped over to the edge of the room and turned up the thermostat before making her way back over to the bed.

She knelt next to Maggie, helping her to slow her breathing, holding her hand once she told her it was okay to touch, checking her pulse and smiling broadly as it came down to close to normal levels, telling Maggie just how proud she was when she was able to unclench her muscles and relax slightly into the mattress. Once the worst of it seemed to be over, she got Maggie to drink water and stretch out her stiff muscles.

“What do you say to a hot bath together? It’ll warm you up, and we can light the nice candles.”

“Even the cookie one?”

“Definitely the cookie one,” Alex agreed, smiling at the signs of Maggie returning. A few moments later, she came back into the bedroom, having lit the candles and begun filling the bath. “You good to walk?”

“Yeah,” Maggie nodded, standing up and rolling her neck to work out the cricks that had developed in it. She still let Alex take her by the hand and walk her to the bathroom, cracked a joke or two when Alex asked to help take off her clothes, grinned when Alex pulled out the extra fluffy towels they had picked up a few weekends ago and set them on the radiator to warm while they were in the bath.

For a while they relaxed in silence, Maggie sitting between Alex’s legs, her head resting on Alex’s shoulders while Alex ran her fingers through Maggie’s hair.

“My dad wrote,” Maggie said, her voice quiet.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you think I’m a bad person?”

“What? No, Maggie, never. You’re—god, you’re one of the best people I know.”

“That’s not true. You know Supergirl.”

“Yeah, well Supergirl never gives me the last slice of pizza, and you always offer to share.”

Maggie snorted, shaking her head against Alex’s shoulder. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean? Because honestly, Maggie, you are one of the most caring people I know. I—you’ve made me better. And not just by helping me to come out,” she clarified, anticipating Maggie’s objection that anyone could’ve done that with enough perseverance or bluntness. “You’ve made me rethink some of those things I assumed I knew. You helped me to see aliens who weren’t just like my sister as people who needed protection, not just prosecution or imprisonment. You showed me possibilities for a life I never thought I’d have.”

“But you didn’t say anything about my family. People have died, Alex—people I loved, people who loved me. They died, and I didn’t know.”

“There’s a difference between choosing not to know and never having been told.”

“Is there? Phones exist. Hell, mail exists. I never tried reaching out.”

“You did nothing wrong!” Alex tried to bite back her anger, knowing that wasn’t what Maggie needed. “Look, I get where you’re coming from. But self-preservation, knowing to take care of yourself—that matters too. You had no way of knowing how they would react if you tried to reach out. They had already hurt you, Maggie.”

“Still. They’re family.”

“And so am I, but if I hurt you—god, Maggie, if I hurt you that way, I wouldn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything. You don’t owe anyone your forgiveness.” Trying to find words, Alex let out a sigh of frustration. “You did try, Maggie. Think about it that way. You tried—you invited your dad to our bridal shower, in part because I wasn’t thinking quite clearly. I thought…I could only think in terms of my own relationship with my mother. And we went through some rough, rough periods, but it was different. I didn’t see that clearly then. But you gave him a chance he didn’t deserve—a chance you were good and pure and kind enough to give him—and he threw it away.”

“He came.”

“Yes, and he left.”

“I know,” Maggie huffed. “And I thought that would be it! And if it was…well, maybe this would all be easier, you know? God, I just—he said no! He doesn’t want me the way I am. So why won’t he stop acting like it’s my fault?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admitted, her voice barely a whisper as she wrapped her arms around Maggie. “I really don’t. And I don’t—I don’t have the perfect advice to offer. I’m happy to call him and yell at him, or get a restraining order, or burn the letter, or ignore it entirely and hold you, or kiss you until you can’t think about anything else. I mean, whatever you want, you know? I’m here for you, and I’ll support you no matter what you choose.”

“Even if I choose vegan ice cream and a whole night of Rizzoli and Isles?” Maggie teased, opting to ignore the tears prickling the corners of her eyes.

“Even both of those terrible choices.”

“You love Rizzles just as much as I do.”

“You’re a cop! How do you deal with all the procedural violations?”

“I watch for the hot ladies with delightful romantic chemistry on my screen and put up with the rest.”

“Yeah, yeah. They don’t even get to make out, though.”

“Neither do half of the actual gay couples on television!”

“Fine,” Alex whined, though she kissed Maggie’s cheek anyway, which led Maggie to turn around, finding Alex’s lips with her own and letting herself be held, letting herself be cared for.

Eventually they got out of the tub, the water having grown lukewarm. Wrapped up in a fuzzy towel, Maggie nudged Alex with her shoulder. “You think it’s okay that I don’t try to reach out to him for Christmas?”

“I think that’s your decision, and you are allowed to celebrate however you want.”

“I mean…I want to celebrate by going sledding and destroying you in a snowball fight.”

“Whatever you want within reason,” Alex clarified, laughing at Maggie’s pout. “And maybe, just maybe, we can think about traveling somewhere cold for a vacation. Don’t see why we’d want to, though,” she added, winking at her fiancée.

“So cheesy movies and as much junk food as Kara can bring over? And maybe when she leaves you and I can find our own way to celebrate…”

“I think that sounds perfect.”

#ask me #anon #prompt fill #fanfic #cw homophobia #cw family abuse #cw depression #angst #hurt/comfort #sanvers #supergirl #maggie sawyer #alex danvers #kara danvers #holidays #maggie-centric #ao3feed