A/n: Alright. So I wrote this about a year ago, and found it on my computer, and was like 'meh' and decided to post it. It's definitely not my best, also it's pretty short and disjointed and different than my normal fanfiction, but here it is, my first Scorpius and Rose fic. Enjoy, and reviews are love :)

Note: Rated T because of mentions of sex and language.

I think I care about you, the first time. I think I care. But there is a lot of firewhiskey, and your eyes are dark, and it's a mistake that started a chain reaction. We don't know it. Maybe we never will.

My marks are all 'O's, and your tie is still emerald coloured and maybe that's the reason why.

We rebel in the quiet ways.

The first time we kiss it's just tongues and lips colliding and it tastes like firewhiskey and how delicious it would sound to tie our names together.

Mail time is the worst.

The Prophets land on every table. Everyone reads them. Everyone reads the trash and gossip and lies.

I counted once, and the names Weasley and Potter were on every page. Every page of the fucking paper. Filled with heinous compliments, rabid gossip, gasps that reporters would invade the War Heroes' privacy while doing just that.

That was when I stopped coming to breakfast.

I never stopped to wonder who else's names filled the pages until a week later, when I realised you were skipping breakfast too.

"Why are you doing this?" you mumble against my mouth the fifth time.

My mind flashes to the letter Hugo wrote home last week, and the Howler I got on Tuesday. I've never seen your face so hot, I wonder for a moment why you're letting me push you against the wall and attack your neck with kisses.

I think of the reasons I could offer up – you're attractive, I was drunk (both true the first time, but no longer applicable really, what with the dark circles under your eyes that I suspect I am causing) – and decide on the truth.

"Because," I mutter, unbuttoning your shirt, "I'm not supposed to."

I enjoy your company, but I enjoy bringing you home more.

We all have our sick little vices, to avoid the pressure of our last names. James goes through girls like the Prophet, day by day. Albus holes himself up in libraries and tries to forget the world. Fred laughs when everyone's silent. Roxanne drinks. Molly draws. Lucy moves away. Teddy and Victoire live in a bubble that consists only of each other. Hugo plays deafening music. Louis stays home. Lily paints up her face until she's utterly unrecognizable. That's the point I guess.

Me, I sleep with you. I bring you home. I revel in our relationship because my parents cringe and yell, and because I'm becoming the opposite of the perfect little image I'm meant to convey.

You're doing the same, there are no pretences here.

The war is over, the prejudice is not. It doesn't end. Ideas are indestructible as cockroaches, and these ones live on. People glare at you and smile at me, until I kiss you in the street.

I am sick of compliments I don't deserve.

I always hand things in on time, I always smile patiently when people talk about my family. I am always polite. I do not rebel in the obvious ways, I do not push society away. I invite them in.

They will figure out eventually that they do not like what lies beyond my surface.

I don't notice when I begin to care about you. You're here in this flat for the same reasons as me – corruption and rebellion and the looks on our parents' faces. Of course, you're a good screw, and I make a good pot of coffee, but there isn't much pretending around here.

There are other girls and other men. Somewhere along the line, I stop with the other men. Somewhere along the line, you become safe. And one night, as you're pulling back on your boxers, and about to leave my bed, I don't think before saying, "Stay."

Your eyes are somewhat bewildered, but your mouth smiles a touch. You come back to me without a word, and I fall asleep with the warm weight of your arm around me.

It's been two days since you stayed in my bed and we've said exactly zero words about it. Occasionally the thoughts press against my teeth but I don't release them. I hardly see you anyways, and I don't know how I feel other than confused and in need of a good smoke but I'm trying to quit. I've just about decided to forget about the vulnerability in the word 'stay' and the half smile on your lips until this morning when I walk into the kitchen.

The coffee's made for me, just the way I like it. You've set out a breakfast plate heaped with eggs and bacon and pancakes at my spot at the table. It's all been charmed to stay steaming hot, I can tell. And there's a daisy lying beside my breakfast.

We're arguing about you again.

It's all the same cutting words – Slytherin, Malfoy, War, Evil – but they never used to matter to me. I sat, bored, while my parents attacked you, and lit a cigarette, which they hated even more. That was, after all, the purpose of dating you, the purpose of moving in together. To prove to my parents that I was whoever I wanted to be, even if that was someone who shacked up with a Malfoy. To prove to the media that good little Rose Weasley, daughter of the heroes of the Great War, didn't give a damn anymore.

Except today the words hurt. They're wrong, I realize today, as I think about your arm around me in bed the other night. They don't know you at all. I didn't know you at all.

For the first time, I yell back. And I mean it.

I don't come home to the flat for two days. I don't spend the night anywhere special, just drinking. Spending the night somewhere would force me to realise I'm avoiding you, something I'm not prepared to face because then I have to ask why.

Why?

Because I'm not used to defending you. Or hell, wanting to defend you. I'm not used to sleeping with your arm around me. I'm not used to flowers beside my breakfast. I'm used to fuck buddies, and using each other for similar purposes. I'm not used to caring, or wanting to be anything. Our relationship is physical and manipulative and I've never wanted to change that.

And it scares me because maybe now I do.

When I come home – and it frightens me a little that I now consider our flat home, it used to just be a cheap place to stay – you're on the couch. You look exhausted and frustrated, and you don't take your eyes off me as I slip in the front door.

I stand in front of you for a long beat of silence. It's intense, the way you're looking at me. I can't face it easily. But I promised myself I would.

"Why didn't you come home?" you say quietly.

"How did you know daisies are my favourite?" I whisper back.

You aren't supposed to know things about me. We're meant to be faceless and disposable for each other, but I know your favourite colour's blue and that you think the Prophet's rubbish and that you like sunrise because it's quiet in the morning and that you take your coffee black. And it terrifies me to know those things, but in a good way.

You shrug, and I realize you know all those things for me too.

I walk over to you, and I sit beside you on the couch, and I pull your face to mine before I can think.

It's not the first kiss we've shared, but it's the first one I really feel. It isn't just lips and tongues colliding, it's feelings, and crashing heartbeats and the first time I feel truly vulnerable.

But you kiss me back, and all the fear I've been feeling for days just dissipates.

I still kiss you in the streets to piss reporters off. I still fight with my parents about you, but the dinner last week might've convinced them. I come round to the Manor and it's not so scary anymore.

And James has got himself a steady girlfriend, and Albus can be convinced to come out of the library sometimes. Fred still laughs in the silence, but the silence isn't so harsh anymore, and Roxanne's sober more often than not. Molly still draws, but the strokes are rounder and softer. Lucy writes letters. Victoire's pregnant. Hugo invests in a pair of earphones. Louis visits occasionally. Sometimes, I think I can see Lily through the layers of paint and powder.

Sometimes that's all there is. Layers of lies, covering up a truth. Sometimes that's what you need.

But, if you dig deep enough, the truth's usually prettier.

Me? I still bring you around to family dinners, but not for the reactions anymore. You've become a more tame subject in the Burrow these days. It's not about rebelling anymore. You grow out of that, as it turns out, which is scarier than it seems.

We've given up our layers of lies.

I still don't like the news stories, but we don't order the Prophet, and I laugh at your jokes. I never have to ask you to stay anymore, you just do. You make breakfast in the mornings, and on our anniversaries you give me daisies. And the flat is home.

Our last names are still exhausting. The pressure doesn't go away, and the war memorial ceremony happens every year. But we give up on being "Malfoy" and "Weasley", we give up on red and green ties, and good and bad, because in the end it's just you and me, and that's enough.