there is no such thing as ready [caden]

It had been weird to have a real date, the first time. They hadn’t been into Hogsmeade in almost a year then and just walking around and sitting in the Three Broomsticks had been strange, never mind with a romantic partner. Their relationship had been public but never that public, never so…usual. Henry had expected doing normal couple things to be refreshing, but it was awkward, made him nervous.

They weren’t normal. Their bond had been formed under unusual circumstances, developed so quickly and become so necessary that Henry didn’t know what to do with himself without arms to sleep in or that voice in his ear. They wrote, so often his family teased him about it, but some part of him was a little glad they were apart now. They’d need to get used to it. This year they wouldn’t be sharing a dormitory, and the year after that Caden wouldn’t be there at all. Henry wanted to be able to function on his own, to enjoy his boyfriend’s company but not be debilitated by his absence.

So he did what he did every summer, most days. He slept until noon and did newspaper puzzles with his grandparents and listened to the radio. But some days, he and Caden would visit. Usually in Diagon Alley, neutral ground. His dad worked down at the end and Henry wasn’t sure he trusted him not to spy on them over his lunch break, but it was the easiest place to go in magical Britain for casual fun.

Henry had been here all morning, had flooed in with his dad. For a couple hours he’d helped open up and hung around reading in the back office. Though he was familiar with the place, he still felt out of place there. He didn’t hang around the shop as much as some of his cousins did. Maybe he ought to have been getting a head start into the world of gainful employment, but he was going to wait until the last possible second for that.

He expected that he’d work there after leaving school, at least for a while. His father had had no qualms about nepotism ever since taking over management and would hire him without a second thought. Of course, he didn’t really want to work there, but not everyone got to do jobs they wanted to do, especially right out of Hogwarts. It wasn’t as if his dad possessed any great passion for apothecary work either. At least, he hadn’t when he started. Henry figured it might grow on him, and if not, it didn’t really matter. He’d had hope that he’d someday discover a passion and a talent but if he didn’t… Work was work. Retail would probably suit him. It was safe and uncreative, but it was necessary. Henry liked to be necessary if nothing else.

Caden, on the other hand, was already as good as employed in a prestigious field. He was the sort of person that suited. All summer he’d been writing enthusiastically of experiments and lectures, things that Henry cared about only because they were written in his hand. And then he’d been away for three weeks, going to a conference in Switzerland which had become an excuse for an extended family vacation, which Henry had been personally offended by no matter how much he knew the Rothways didn’t have to plan their lives around their son’s boyfriend. His plan of independence was not going as well as he might have hoped, so far.

He was sitting on a bench outside the post office as it neared eleven. Waiting for things got him flustered and he’d left the shop with almost an hour to spare just in case, which left him with too much time to sit and tap his feet. Every few moments he looked down one end of the alley, unsure which way Caden would be coming from. And somehow, despite all the looking and waiting, seeing the boy himself approach managed to catch him off guard.

Henry looked him up and down, searching him for something different, though he wasn’t sure why he expected it. “Hello, stranger,” he said, trying to hold himself back, look suave and not at all desperate to embrace him.

@Caden Rothway

Caden had always had the ability to keep things tucked away inside. Many of his peers regarded with fascination the silent, stoic determination that had embodied him for as long as anyone could really remember. He was always curled up in some quiet corner, reading a book or studying up on something. Maybe the occasional game of Wizard’s Chess. But if there was one thing everyone knew about Caden Rothway it was that nothing ever, ever changed. Same routine, same placid smile, same quiet curiosity.

But everything was different now.

Summertime had never brought him joy, per se, but it had always brought him peace. Dedicated tutoring under his father’s wing at Rothway Manor, trips to lectures and workshops and Guild meetings, breezy nights turning pages in the windowsill. It was respite from the endless, pressing shuffle of Hogwarts; quite honestly, even the stairways moved. But as the warm summer sun filled the sky and melted the year away, it unearthed territory that had never been conquered.

Because this wasn’t Caden’s summer, not anymore. He shared it, as he did all things, with him: the one with the freckles. The one whom he had memorized fervently, like the pages of a book, until he’d become his surest piece of knowledge. Ever since that day in the Three Broomsticks, the day they’d proven they could survive in the thralls of the public eye, Caden couldn’t seem to focus on anything else. Summer’s light had found its way into even the darkest of memories from the past year, and for once he was facing nothing but possibility.

And when the boy who never changed instead became a whirlwind of change, it was impossible not to notice. He didn’t care much for the potion lectures, he didn’t want to spend his hours scribbling notes beside a bubbling cauldron. He wanted to be with him, around him, a part of him. After all these years, Ellis wasn’t going to let him get sidetracked. On came the mountains of work, the endless list of lectures to attend, text after text piling up on his desk. Anything to distract him, anything to change him back.

When that failed, they were off to Switzerland. Nora regarded her son with empathy as Ellis insisted that this was just what they needed. The man managed their time so precisely that there wasn’t even time to write, lecture to social event to dinner to bed. They stayed with family friends, which was Caden’s only real respite, the chance to confide all of it in his longtime childhood mate. He described Henry with such distinction that the bleach-blonde wizard wandering alongside him was compelled to put charcoal to paper.

By the final day of their extended stay, one thing was clear: Caden was much, much worse when he was deprived of Henry’s company. Ellis had done enough experiments to recognize clear results. The man’s icy demeanor was not enough to deter Caden when they returned to the Manor, his mother watching with quiet admiration as he smoothed his hair nervously in the mirror. He and Ellis had more in common than either of them wanted to notice.

A warm summer breeze scurried through the alley, brightly dressed witches and wizards bustling about on their business. Someone suddenly looked very out of place; a fair, pensive visage clad in tailored black robes. His hair was smoothed neatly as pale blue eyes found him in an instant, exactly as he’d remembered. Only better, for he was tangible. Long, quiet strides carried him down the way as a private smirk curled on his lips. Henry spoke and Caden searched his face, taking him in freckle by freckle. He seemed impossibly cool and collected and Caden wondered if he too was thundering like a tempest inside.

“I may be strange,” he said softly, a hand moving to run its thumb along the boy’s cheek. “But I’m no stranger.” The intensity of his expression gave way to a smile reserved for Henry and Henry alone. He was getting better about finding their own little world amidst the chaos. His thumb wandered a bit lower, gliding along Henry’s lip as their eyes met. “May I?” he queried lightly, his words tremulous with zeal and chivalrous hesitation.

All this time, all these changes, and yet that much was always the same: the arresting, intemperate need to kiss Henry Murphy. 

“You’re not strange,” said Henry, automatically. “I was just trying to—I thought it sounded cool, never mind.” His attempt at composure had started to disintegrate the second Caden spoke to him, moved close and touched him. Henry couldn’t pretend around him, try as he sometimes might.

“You may, I guess,” he replied, cheeks burning. He stood up a little on his tiptoes and wrapped a hand around Caden’s arm, starting to lean in. “I mean, you might want to save something for when we can get alone,” he warned him. There was some dark intensity simmering in Caden’s eyes and Henry was still a little nervous, a little shy of unlocking something wild as they stood here in the middle of the most populous street in Britain. “I think that’s why Dad’s being cool,” he said with a little laugh. “He knows there’s not much we can get up to in public.” The thought of renting a room at the Leaky Cauldron seemed to have escaped him, but Henry didn’t want to try and sneak around through loopholes. Maybe at the end of the summer… At Hogwarts, of course, there would be no more loopholes either way.

“I—I dunno what you really want to do,” he said, linking their arms together. “Just walking around is fine. Or we can get something to eat; I have some money.” He was overwhelmed, to be honest. It was too much after what felt like too long. “Tell me about your trip,” said Henry, and instantly felt like an idiot. He was going straight to the most obvious small talk already. What a bore. “I mean, you wrote about stuff,” he mumbled, “but like—“ It felt like it had been so long since he’d heard Caden speak. Letters were nice, but not the same.

“Of course I am,” Caden replied with a smirk on his face. Henry seemed to be fumbling with his words all of a sudden and it only made Caden ache for him more. There was a protective, quelling part of him that wanted to stop him then and there, silence him with kisses, leave the words for some other time and some other place. Caden had always been a quiet person, but where Henry was concerned he’d found whole new ways to communicate. Fun ways. Very fun ways.

As his thoughts wandered to licentious places, he shook his head gently at Henry’s continued speech. “You’re dad’s right,” he said simply as he locked eyes with him, leaning so close that it was almost cruel to linger. “Not much we can do out here, but there is a little,” he reminded softly before pressing soft lips against him. The kiss was respectful, restrained, not at all the wild passionate truth that burned in his lungs. As the seconds passed, it all got a bit away from him.

Enough to earn a scoff, anyway, from a particularly old and particularly grumpy witch opening up her street cart. He flashed her a warning gaze, which seemed enough to at least drive her to focus on her own matters. He kissed Henry again, as if to make a point, though it was quick and possessive in nature. Perhaps it was the madness his father had put him through, perhaps it was just age — but Caden had become more defiant and blithe as of late. He almost felt like he was living up to the green emblem emblazoned on his robes.

He stepped back a bit, enough to allow Henry some room to breathe. He wanted to envelop, not smother him. He held his hand, slender fingers pleasantly interlinking with Henry’s. “We can walk, we can talk, we can eat,” he agreed with a soft smile. “We can do anything. As long as we’re together,” he said simply. “I will have you know, though,” he added a bit more seriously, “I’ll be covering our expenses,” he said with some degree of finality. “Nothing’s off limits.” He hadn’t been earning galleons from his apprenticeship all summer for his health.

He began to stroll idly down the way, leaning against Henry as much as he could. It felt right to be near him, to be touching him. To be in his presence was to be complete. “The trip was fine,” he said coolly, both of them knowing it wasn’t exactly the truth. “As fine as it could be, when you’re traveling with a madman,” he said impishly with a little laugh.  He took a breath. “Honestly, I’m glad to be back, obviously. The lectures were fine, interesting, but mentally I was… elsewhere,” he offered as he eyed Henry intently.

He stopped then, reaching into his robes. “The only good thing really was the chance to see some old family friends, Swiss wizards, real good lot,” he said simply as he produced a small folded piece of paper. “My friend, he’s an artist. Working in Paris and everything,” he explained. “When I told him about you, the way I spoke of you, he made this,” he said slowly as he extended the paper for Henry to have.

The sketch was dazzling in every shade of pastel, it seemed. A rainbow of color that somehow came together in an eerily accurate recollection of Henry’s features. “It’s kind of his thing, I guess, drawing people from the way they’re described,” he offered as he watched nonchalantly, downplaying the eagerness for Henry’s reaction he felt inside. “Even down to the freckles...” he said with awe, glancing from the page to Henry’s handsome face. 

It made his heart leap, skipping in time, his stomach twisting. Would this ever stop? The way he longed for him? But as he waited, he wondered something far more important: why would he ever want it to?

Henry tried to look disapproving at the witch they’d displeased, but it was somehow more difficult when it was you and not someone else being huffed at. Normally he’d have snapped at anyone being rude to strangers in a second. But now his first instinct had been toward a more apologetic expression, toward embarrassment. It was his old dumb problem. Like when Gemma had caught them, like the first kiss on Platform 9 ¾.  He couldn’t figure out how he could be so proud of this but so shy about it. Caden, meanwhile, shut up the witch with a sharp glare and leaned down to kiss him firmly again. Henry closed his eyes and didn’t open them for a second after they’d pulled apart. He liked to feel strong, he wanted to be strong. And half the time he’d convince himself that he was the brave one, the Gryffindor. But there was also something nice, he was discovering, about feeling protected.

They started off down toward the end of the alley. “Well,” said Henry. “In that case, I think it’ll be lobster and caviar for lunch, and then we can go broom shopping.” He nudged Caden with their linked arms as they walked. “I could use a Firebolt or something nice for when I try to get a quaffle past my dad in the garden.” Beyond jokes, he wasn’t sure how he actually felt about Caden paying for everything. The idea of being treated wasn’t unwelcome, at least to the part of him that liked stuff, but there was some other prideful part of him that it didn’t sit well with. Even if the Rothways had a good deal more money than his family it still felt wrong to take it. He’d order something cheap.

“It can’t have been that bad, could it?” he asked, hopefully, as Caden grumbled about his trip. “Your dad seemed alright when I met him.” A little stern, maybe, and very scary to Henry, but alright. When Caden said stuff like this is made Henry want to take him home and let him stay for a little while. His own family were probably also mad people, but in a very different way than Caden’s. He felt like it might be relaxing.

But then Caden pulled out something to show him, and Henry was distracted. He gasped, taking the piece of paper into his own hands and looking down at it intently. “Wow, and—and not even a photograph, or nothing?” Henry didn’t really know anything about art. He didn’t know how to describe it or compliment it intelligently. “I like the colors,” he said, hoping that was good enough. “Did you tell him to do that, or was it just sort of how it happened?” He could see Caden describing him in such a way, too-flattering terms and fancy words, that could have made somebody think he was this alive and colorful.“Wow,” he said again, and paused to look at the drawing a few seconds longer before folding it back up handing it back to Caden. “I wish I could do that.” Then he wouldn’t be agonizing about his O.W.L. scores being due any day, he could go off and be talented no matter what.