Summer's End

[maja_li]

Title: Summer's End
Pairing: Lorcan/Lysander
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, mentions of incest/twincest/scamandercest and underage sex (17)
Word count: ~1400
Disclaimer: Lorcan&co. belong to JKR. Not me.
Summary: A Gryffindor shouldn't brood so much
A/N: Because clearly dysonrules's Twinsensibility is getting to me. XP Written for awdt's Halloween Quickie #5, the bonfire


Lysander Scamander was not best pleased. His parents were gathering brushwood for their Samhain fire--Mum watching out for Pisterlings among the roses, oh good Lord--and Lorcan was engaged in a rather vigorous seasonal debate via Firecall, but Lysander...

Lysander didn't even know what he was doing there. He heaved a heavy sigh and hopped down off the low garden wall, turning away from his family's cozy cottage and heading up the beaten track toward the village proper. The afternoon October air was cold and crisp against his skin, like the leaves that crunched underfoot and skittered in skirls along the sides of the road. Lysander watched them, and wondered if wishing for a normal family really made him such an awful person. Oh, he wouldn't want to be stuck with, you know, Mary-Jane Perks's mum or anything boring like that...but he thought it would have been nice to have grown up without getting weird looks for talking about Stoopurtlers and Houkwarts, without marking himself as different before he'd even known there was a "different" to be marked as.

Maybe he ought to start a...a sort of pre-school school, somewhere parents could send their children to get that first taste of social experience while they were still too young to carry it around with them for the rests of their lives. They could teach reading and writing, arithmetic, basic flying and spell work (with toy brooms and wands, of course)...all the things that were for the most part left up to parents who had neither the time nor the inclination to do a proper job of it. There was a reason so many wizards could barely follow a Potions book, and it wasn't that they were lacking in magic...

He had all but started drawing up blueprints when Lysander heard quick footsteps behind him, and turned to see Lorcan jogging up the road toward him.

"Mind if I--join you?" he asked, only a little winded despite the fact that by now Lysander had almost reached the village, half a mile or more away. Lysander smiled.

"I never mind you," he said, giving his twin an affectionate nudge, "What time is it?"

"Very nearly half four."

" 'Very nearly'?"

"Oh, yes. We've got a good two, three minutes at least."

"Two or three minutes, eh?"

"Mm-hm."

"I see..." Lysander pondered this for a moment, and then suddenly leaped forward, calling back over his shoulder, "Race you!"

"You bastard!" Lorcan howled--and gave chase.

* * *

They tumbled through the door of MacMerton's Ice Cream and Spirits at four twenty-nine, laughing and gasping and elbowing each other out of the way as they stumbled toward the counter. Searah MacMerton, great-great-granddaughter of the original MacMerton, looked over and broke into a smile at the sight of her two favorite customers.

"No, let me guess," she said, holding up a hand before either of them could speak. "Hm...I'm thinking a Flaming Fuzzball for Lorcan," she pointed to the twin on the left, "and for Lysander, a Blue Screamer with...rainbow sprinkles and extra cherries?"

"How do you do that?" Lysander groaned, and Searah laughed.

"The day a lady can't tell a Gryffindor man from a Ravenclaw is the day she stops looking," she said, winking and tapping the side of her nose. "And the day I can't tell what a man needs when he walks into my shop is a day just not worth thinking about. Now, why don't the two of you go find somewhere to sit--I just opened up, there's plenty of space--and I'll have those sundaes out for you in just a second."

She disappeared behind the bar with another wink and a flick of her apron, and was back by the time Lysander and Lorcan had shrugged off their outer robes and settled themselves in their usual corner booth.

"There you are, loves," she said, setting two heaping bowls of ice cream in front of them, "and don't even think about paying--tell your da it's a Samhain gift, if he says anything, and give my love to your mum, right?" She bustled off again; Lysander peered at Lorcan over the top of his sundae and laughed.

"You see? This is the difference between you and me," he said, gesturing between his own dish, piled high and crackling with sparks of magic, and Lorcan's, which he had long ago convinced Searah to organize into neatly delineated sets of toppings, categorized by flavor. "You want to do things to please yourself, but I...I want to do everything at once." He took a huge bite, and grinned at Lorcan through a gleaming blue mouthful. Lorcan shook his head, but looked amused nonetheless.

"Taking pleasure in the simple things?" he asked, a bit ironically--Searah MacMerton's Blue Screamer was anything but simple--but Lysander nodded anyway.

"It's either that or start moping again because we're back here, instead of at the Halloween Ball."

Lorcan's eyes narrowed.

"And what, exactly, were you planning to do at the Ball?"

"Oh, the usual...put a little Gillyweed in the candle wicks, spike the punch with Firewhiskey, maybe have another shot at planting that Quick-Quotes Quill in Longbottom's office..."

"Yes?"

"--and, you know, maybe think about sort of making a move on Darren Zabini, just a little bit?"

"I see." Lorcan stood, not abruptly but with distinct intent nonetheless, took Lysander's hands in his own--and suddenly Disapparated them both.

"Oof!" Lorcan landed on his knees with a grunt and peered about in the gloom of the shaded clearing. "What in the--"

"If you tell me you don't recognize our glade, I shall be very cross," Lorcan called. He had already moved off and was circling the trunks of nearby trees, inspecting them for something. "Aha!" He pointed his wand up at a sunlit spot and a ten-leaved vine of ivy tumbled down into his hands. He twisted it into a wreath, plucked off one leaf, and came back to set it on Lysander's head before turning away again, muttering, "Now, about those roses..."

Lysander caught him by the wrist.

"Of course I recognize it," he said softly. "And you don't need any stupid roses to..." Lorcan sighed.

"And what, exactly, am I supposed to think about your plans for Darren Zabini?"

"That they're funny, that he's a fit enough bloke, that it'd be good amusement...I'm not like you and mum and dad, Lorcan. I need people, I need others, I need--" He stopped, took a deep breath. "And it shouldn't be about what I need. I know that. But sometimes I just get so scared, thinking about how there's never been anyone else, and never will be, not in my whole life. Thinking about what I'd do if I didn't have you--"

"How do you think I feel, then?" Lorcan snapped, not turning around to face him. "When every other week, I wonder if I do still have you."

Lysander made a soft, pained sound and hauled him close, tucking Lorcan's head against his shoulder and burying his face in his twin's fine, golden hair, their bodies fitting too-perfectly together in a way they would never--could never--with anyone else.

"I'll end it," he whispered fiercely. "I'll end it, I swear, I'll stop going out, I'll never even look at anyone else ever again, I'll teach myself not to--"

"You're so melodramatic." Lorcan chuckled weakly and pulled back just enough to look Lysander in the eye." "I don't want you to become a hermit--I'm the Ravenclaw, remember? You are different, you do need people--just, I think, not in your bed," he amended tartly. Lysander grinned, and suddenly tumbled both of them to the ground.

"And what about not in bed?" He smirked, rolling on top of Lorcan.

"Mmm...no, no, I think I'll claim that, too."

"Greedy," Lysander chided and kissed him--and then neither of them said anything else for quite a while.

* * *

Afterwards, dressed again and wreathed in Warming Charms, they stared up at the stars through tree branches still clinging to their last few leaves.

"Look, there's Gemini," Lorcan said, pointing up somewhere Lysander couldn't see. "It's got rather a fascinating history, as constellations go. The Egyptians called it Soketh-Ra and associated it with valour in battle, while the Celts--"

Lysander huffed and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow so that he could look down at Lorcan.

"I'm starting a pre-school school," he announced. "You can come teach there if you promise to help me with the ledgers and not talk about constellations."

And Lorcan laughed--and promised.

-fin-