25 stories Penknife never wrote about the Marauders
/A brief summary of 25 stories I resisted writing for the fanfic100 challenge. All prompts swiped from the fanfic100 chart/
2. Middles
"Well, they all already know what happens in the books," Sirius said, "so why don't we just have sex?"
"Oh, for the love of--"
"It's that or do the part where I'm in Azkaban and you're bitter and unemployed."
"Well, when you put it that way," Remus said, and took his shirt off.
5. Outsides
"Why does everyone always write me as the girl?" Remus asked.
"You look sort of fragile," Sirius said. "Oh, fuck, oww!"
Remus dusted off his knuckles. "That felt good."
9. Months
"You know, based only on fanfiction, you would believe that pregnancy lasted approximately ninety percent of a woman's life," Lily said. She stared down at her belly. "Not that I'm not appreciating the miracle of life, here, but ..."
James looked at her hopefully. "We could have sex."
"I was thinking more of having had a career or something," Lily said. "You know, so that my life does not consist of 'was Head Girl, had sex with James Potter, had baby, died.'"
"It could be really good sex," James said.
Lily sighed.
10. Years
Azkaban was very unpleasant.
"They already know that," Sirius said. "Can this be a story about sex?"
The author sighed.
14. Green
"Slytherins suck," Sirius said.
"If this is that sort of story, I don't want to watch," James said.
"I wasn't talking about sex!" Sirius said. "For once."
Severus sighed.
18. Lovers
"We are the canon couple here," Lily said, looking up from the tangle of blankets in which she and James were watching the stars from the top of the Astronomy Tower. "Shove off, you two."
Remus and Sirius sighed.
19. Family
"James, you're just like the brother I never had," Sirius said, throwing an arm around James's shoulders.
Regulus sighed.
24. Too Much
"Well, now I've had sex with you, and James, and James and Lily, and Severus, for some reason, and my younger brother, and half the Quidditch team." Sirius frowned. "I'm almost starting to get a little tired of the whole thing."
Remus shrugged. "It's that or do the part where you're in Azkaban and I'm shagging random strangers in bars."
"Right," Sirius said, and took his shirt off.
******************************************
Her gloved hand tightens around him and she bends her head and bites him through the fabric of his shirt. He feels himself losing it and tries to kiss her, his lips only brushing her hair. He struggles up against her, feeling her warm breath against his cheek, and it's only when her lips touch his skin that he feels himself come.
"Oh, God," he says, "oh, God --"
"You'd let me do just about anything, wouldn't you?" There's something just a little scary in her voice. She puts her hand on his chest, and he isn't sure he could get up if he wanted to; he's dizzy, his head spinning. "But I guess you've always liked playing with fire."
"That's not what I like," he says, but her hand is sliding into his pocket; she pulls out the lighter he's started carrying there and holds it up like it's evidence. She flicks on the flame and lowers her hand, too close to his body. He's afraid his shirt will catch fire. He can feel the heat against his skin.
"You never did this before?" she asks.
The heat is like a burning hand pressed against his stomach. He's pretty sure that if he says "No" she'll press her lips against his skin and breathe him in until she knows.
He kind of wants her to, even though he knows she'd feel guilty about hurting him, and that would make things weird between them. Maybe weirder than if he just tells her. It's not like when he did it with John it was sex. It's not like it meant anything. It was really an accident.
The heat against his skin is starting to hurt, and all at once the flame freezes; he didn't mean to do that, either. Rogue pulls the lighter away, looking suddenly stricken. She lifts the back of her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. Did I --"
"You didn't hurt me," he says, although she did. It's not the first time.
***************************************************
She's trying to figure out what things mean from how they look, like making sense of the fragments of other people's memories she's left with when she touches their skin.
There are people at the edges of the picture, hands or shoulders cut off because Jean's not looking at them
There's the professor, reaching down a hand for something--an ornament? She can just see his profile, most of his body cut off by the frame. He's kind of smiling but there's something in his eyes that's wrong, and she doesn't know why. He's looking at …, but she can't see enough to understand. The pictures don't really say what's important.
"I don't have to win," Bobby had said, and what the fuck could Pyro say to that?
He probably thinks they're all about him, like his story isn't anybody else's. If he told her about them there'd still be things that got cut off by the frame, all the things he didn't see. But maybe it's worth getting him to anyway; she doesn't really think a picture is worth a thousand words.