FIC: Breaking the Silence (George/Katie)
To: Antosha
From: Your Secret Santa

Title: Breaking the Silence
Author: aibhinn (fic journal)
Pairing: George/Katie
Summary: I thought, if anyone could understand, it would be you.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Author's notes: Not a lot of plot, but I did try to work in some. Happy Christmas!



George stood on the next-to-highest step in front of Katie's house and stared at the familiar lion-shaped knocker on the door. It was familiar not only from years of friendship, but from this thing between them, these oddly-platonic nightly get-togethers that had become so much a part of his life in such a short time. He raised a hand and took hold of the knocker, tapping it lightly three times against the baseplate.

The door opened and she stood there, dressed in ordinary black robes. Her collar was unbuttoned, and he could just glimpse the hollow at the base of her throat. It shouldn't have been as sexy as it was, but somehow he couldn't tear his eyes away. He blinked furiously, turned his head to the side. "Hi," he said, his voice low.

She reached out, touched his cheek gently. He forced himself not to flinch away from the heat engendered from that small contact, though he couldn't quite make himself look at her. "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come tonight," she said. "It's almost midnight."

"Too late?" he asked.

"Of course not." She stepped out of the way. "Come in."

He knew where to go by this time; he'd knocked at her door nearly every night for the past three months. Ever since that glorious, dreadful day at Hogwarts when Voldemort had been destroyed forever, but at the cost of so many lives. He pulled his Muggle jacket off, hung it on the stand by the door, and made his way silently into her lounge. She padded after him, bare feet on the tile floor of her corridor, and waited until he'd settled at one end of the sofa.

"Firewhiskey?" she asked, as she always did. Breaking tradition, he shook his head, earning him a slightly wide-eyed look of surprise. He half-grinned. It wasn't often he could surprise her.

She hesitated, then curled up on the other end of the sofa, facing him. He leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, relaxing for the first time all day. The scent of broomstick polish and the last vestiges of a roast filled his nostrils, far different from the smells of his own flat: chemicals, old socks, and the dust that had collected on Fred's belongings—the dust he couldn't touch, not quite. Not yet.

"Bad one today?" Katie asked quietly.

"The day? No," he answered, not opening his eyes. "The day was fine. Lots of business, busy from the time we opened, and nobody telling me how sorry they are." He swallowed; that had been almost the worst part of the first few weeks. It was what had finally brought home that his twin was truly gone forever: the expressions of sympathy from friend and stranger alike, seemingly neverending and almost all of them genuine. When he was allowed to be busy, without reminders of his loss, whole minutes could pass by without his noticing the silence in his mind where Fred's presence had always been. Telepathic twins, they'd been called; for the two of them, it had been almost as though they'd been two halves of the same person. He'd always known where Fred was, how he was feeling, and sometimes—if he concentrated—could even see what he was doing as though he were looking through his twin's eyes. But now—

"It's too quiet," he said at last. "I can't sleep."

He heard Katie shift on the sofa, but she didn't touch him. "Your flat?"

"Everything." How to explain that the silence was in his mind? No one who wasn't a twin themselves could possibly understand. "Everything's quiet, and it's…" He stopped.

"Lonely?" Katie supplied softly.

He opened his eyes now, and turned to look at her. "Empty," he said. "Like there's nothing worth seeing. Like the colour's been drained out of the world."

Her brow furrowed with compassion. "George—" she began.

He interrupted. This was what he'd come to tell her. "Except with you."

She stopped, blinking in surprise. He pressed on, afraid that if he stopped, he'd not be able to start again—and it had taken him hours to work himself up to the point of being able to tell her this.

"I was in bed at my flat, and I was trying not to hear the silence, you know, trying to think of other things, and all I could hear was you." Her mouth opened, then closed again as he went on, talking fast now, faster than usual to keep himself from chickening out. "I could hear your voice and your laughter in my mind, and when I did, it didn't seem so flat anymore. And I thought, if anyone could understand it would be you. And so I got dressed and came over, even though it's almost midnight, and I was hoping we could, I don't know, talk or something, because this is the only place I feel like it's going to be all right, you know, the only place I feel nobody's hounding me to just get over it, because I'm not going to just get over it, and you know it, and you're letting me get on with it in my own time, and—"

He stopped. The expression on her face had changed. The pain was gone, and the tears as well. It was something else he saw there—something else entirely.

"Is that what you wanted to do?" she asked. Her eyes blazed. "Talk?"

He looked into her eyes deeper yet, and saw the fire there. Desire surged up in him and he shivered. He was right: she did understand.

"No," he said simply.

He saw her eyes dilate just before she rose from her seat and moved to stand before him. Without breaking their gaze, she reached up to the buttons on her robes and began to undo them, unhurriedly but without the feeling that she was going slow on purpose, either. He watched as she worked the buttons loose, one by one, until she was able to slide the fabric off her shoulders. It fell down her arms to pool on the floor, and he swallowed: she wasn't wearing anything underneath.

He kicked off his shoes as she climbed onto his lap, straddling him. He regretted, suddenly, his impulsive decision to put on Muggle clothes earlier; his trousers were certainly far too tight all of a sudden. "Do you do this often?" he asked, running his hands up the warm, soft curve of her back as she settled over him. "Wear robes and nothing else?"

"Only when I think you're coming over," she said with a grin, and bent to touch her lips to his. He met her kiss eagerly, but let her control it as she chose—which was to keep it to shallow kisses, soft, with a thoroughly distracting focus on nibbling on his lower lip. He stroked the line of her spine, purposely keeping himself away from the more interesting portions of her anatomy. Some small part of his brain was convinced that she was trying to push him until he broke, and he wanted her to break first; wanted to see her lose control and melt into him.

Her deft hands—a Quidditch player's hands—worked at the buttons of his shirt, avoiding his rapidly heating skin with skill. He lifted his hips as she tugged the tails loose, his eyes watching her face. She had a tiny little furrow between her eyebrows as she concentrated on undressing him, her lower lip caught between her teeth, and he found himself fascinated by the minute changes in her expression as she worked.

Her hands slid beneath the cotton and up over his shoulders, pushing the shirt off. He pulled his arms free and she dropped the shirt behind her, onto the floor. As she leaned back to do so, he bent forward and took her right nipple between his lips, flicking his tongue delicately over its tip. She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck, arching farther backwards and obliging him to splay his hands against her back to support her. Her hair fell behind her in a glorious mane, just brushing his fingers as she moved so she was settled more fully in his lap. He could feel the heat of her pressed against his hardness as she shifted. It dragged a groan from the back of his throat and he moved his mouth to her other breast, teasing and suckling as she shifted restlessly. "George," she murmured, one of her hands working into his hair at the nape of his neck.

"Mm?" he asked, hiding a grin and then swallowing a gasp of his own as she rocked her hips into him.

"Why am I still the only one naked?" She curled her fingers in his hair and tugged his head up, pulling herself back up to sitting. Her eyes were deep, dark pools, her irises almost entirely swallowed up by her dilated pupils.

"Dunno," he said huskily as her clever fingers worked their way between the two of them and drifted over the zip on his jeans. "Because I'm less patient than you are?"

"I'll show you how patient I am," she growled, and pushed away from him, sliding to the floor. He hissed out a breath of pure lust as she roughly unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, pulling them and his pants out of the way just enough to free his erection. Her hand closed around it, and while his mind was still grappling with that sensation, she bent down to take him into her mouth.

His head slammed backward into the sofa cushion and his world narrowed to nothing but sensation. She slid smoothly down his length, tongue dancing over him, and he found the rest of the world had gone somewhat fuzzy. His hands tangled in her hair as she bobbed up and down, and he felt tension gathering at the base of his spine and in the pit of his stomach. He panted for air, fighting for restraint.

"Katie…." She hummed an interrogative answer and his hips lifted of their own accord. "Katie!" he tried again, more a whimper than a demand, but she stopped what she was doing and pulled away, looking up at him with mischief in her grin and lust in her eyes. "Keep that up and this'll be over far sooner than you intend," he told her seriously.

Her eyebrows rose. "And what do you propose doing about that?"

He looked at her for a moment, then reached down to push pants and trousers the rest of the way off. She helped him, pulling his socks off as well, and then allowed him to tug her upwards into his lap once more. His hands slid down her back and over her bum and he lifted her slightly, positioning her so he could slide into her.

They both hissed in pleasure as she sank down onto him, heads bent forward and foreheads touching as they exchanged breath, allowing their bodies to become accustomed to each other. George forced himself to wait, no matter how much he wanted to arch up into her; to remain still as her eyes squeezed shut and she took deep, controlled breaths.

When her eyes opened, he felt as though he was being swallowed up in the heat within them. She lifted away from him and then let herself slide back down, and again, and again. He caught her rhythm, followed it but struggled with himself to let her set the pace. Left to his own devices, this wouldn't have lasted very long at all—or conversely, he thought in a daze, he might have found a way to make it last forever.

Katie never pulled away from him; she remained where she was, forehead pressed to his as they moved together, their combined sweat making their skin slick as they moved towards the inevitable resolution. Desperate to watch her shatter before him, George worked a hand between them and pressed his thumb against her centre, rubbing in tight, unrelenting circles. She mewled desperately, hands curling into fists against his back as she moved. "That's it," George murmured. "Go on, Katie. I've got you. Go on."

Her muscles locked in a spasm of pleasure as she leaned her head back, a half-groan, half-cry dragged from her throat. She tightened spasmodically around him and he lost what control he'd been holding, hips jerking up into her as he spilled inside her, gasping her name. She clung to him, holding him as the last waves shivered through him, until at last they sat collapsed against each other, panting and sweaty and exhilarated.

A long moment later, she raised her head and kissed him again, slow and lingering and warm. He kissed her back leisurely, feeling as though his bones had melted in her heat. She pulled away and smiled at him. "Think you can sleep now?" she asked archly.

His grin back was real, for the first time in weeks. "I dunno," he said. "It might still be too quiet for me here. Unless you snore?" he added mock-hopefully.

She smacked his shoulder lightly and he laughed, pulling her close to him again. It might take a while, he thought, but now he knew for sure everything would be all right. As long as he had her.