Title: Turning Point
Pairing: George/Angelina (past George/others; past Fred/Angelina)
Rating: NC17
Words: 3300
Theme: Confession, though it turns out here that while the confession and the sex are concurrent and related, it's not really that the confessing is a kink.
Warnings: This isn't cheerful fic; it takes place a few weeks after Fred's death.
A/N: Canonically, Angelina goes to the Yule Ball with Fred; Jo's post-DH family tree has her marrying George. Here I am playing with the notion of, okay, so what if the Yule Ball was the beginning of a Fred/Angelina relationship that was casual and then eventually more serious, and with the issue of what, then, would happen between George and Angelina in the weeks following Fred's death. Thanks to emiime for the read-through and for fixing my inexplicable incompetence with quotation marks.

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Turning Point

The first time George fucks Angelina is three weeks after the funeral and four hours after the opening speech at the official celebratory event marking the end of the war. It's the first time, but it's actually the third time, and they're a little drunk and more than a little high on Ministry-disapproved substances that were entirely required to survive the evening, and he can hear Fred cheering him on as he enters her. The feel of her around the head of his cock, of her strong body under him, with lithe compact thighs and the rough hands of someone who eschews gloves when she flies and the smooth heat of her taut belly, leaves him so conflicted he almost can't move.

Until her heel comes up and literally kicks him in the arse to move.

Then, when she growls at him, says to bloody well get on with it and she wants to come on his cock and she wants him to make her feel better and she wants to watch him shake and shudder as he spills into her, then he drives in hard and angry, self-control thinned by emotions and potions and frustration, and it takes all of a minute and a half to bruise them both with the force of fucking hard enough to lose themselves.

Well. To lose him, if he's honest. It's like he's there between them if they leave any open space, and George is so angry with him every minute of his every not-dead day he wants to thrash him, so he does, slamming and crushing the empty air. He knows they--he and Ang--are both troubled and grieving and in that place between shock and acceptance, and he knows, at least intellectually, that taking comfort where they find it is all right, or at least, not all wrong. It doesn't matter; he still hears Fred in the empty space, shouting at him to goddamn live and be enough for both of them and stop moping and so yeah. Yeah, he's enough for both of them all right, fucking his brother's girl, what, on his behalf or something, like it's all right to substitute, and then sliding down her body to fuck her again, with fingers and tongue and nose until she cries out and knees his head and comes with his-could-be-Fred's come oozing out of her onto his tongue.

Then he crawls forward and begins it all over, his balls slapping against her arse, or, another time, against her knuckles as she braces on one hand and works her clit as he slides in from behind. Continuing is easier than stopping, easier than talking, and as long as they're fucking there's no silence to think in. They moan and shout and intermittently curse at and through each other, and probably it's just as well she likes that loud Muggle music and therefore has a charm around the place, because certainly someone would call the Aurors; they likely sound as though one or both of them is murdering the other. Maybe they are. Maybe the papers will announce a death by violent fucking.

At least it wouldn’t involve having to tolerate any more awkward condolences or well-meaning platitudes.

He gives it his best shot, until finally they pass out, exhausted, sticky, tangled together and too hot and not willing to muster the resources to change it. Neither of them sleeps well--this isn't new to George; he hasn't slept through a night since the battle, and is beginning to think he never will again--and as soon as one of them moves, so does the other, pushing and rubbing, all urgency and lust until they nap again.

When morning rolls around, they're both so bloody sore they start the day by arguing, rasping voices harsh, over who should Summon a wand in order to Summon the pharmacopeia of potions they want: one to still the throb of a hangover that's as much dehydration from hours of sweat as it is response to firewhisky; one to soothe the burn where whiskers rasped and fingers gripped and sweat-damp skin chafed; one to swallow in hurried gulps to numb everything else.

The last one is dangerous and they split a single phial wordlessly and do without the rest because the hangover potion is all gone, and the analgesic has dried out, gone chalky. Pain shared is pain halved, but despite that the obvious (unrecommended) response to this is to double up the dose, she only brings the one phial. George looks at his half and gulps it quickly, thinking if it were up to him, he'd go the other way. But he can do stupid things when he's alone.

More alone; he's alone right now.

Finally, after getting up and shuffling naked to the kitchen of Angelina's efficiency flat, a journey of some ten steps, they settle back on the rumpled and stale sheets with their glasses of too-tart juice and stare half-numbed at the dawning of another gorgeous mid-summer day.

"I pretended you were Fred," she says after a little while.

He presses his lips together, but thinks of nothing useful to say. He surprises himself by responding at all. "Yeah."

"…Yeah?" Her glance at him uses the smallest possible movement: a blink and a slide of the eye.

He doesn't know how to explain why it makes sense--that is, it does, of course it does, because he looks just like him, except the ear, and she fucked Fred a hundred times, and they talked last night about how neither of them is managing more than tinned soup and firewhisky. But then, nothing makes sense, too, and this especially, because who says that? Who says, oh, by the way, your dead brother that you miss so badly your toes hurt? I just replaced you, in my head, with him while you were inside my body?

He drains his drink and shrugs, listless, though even that small movement hurts both because he's sore, and because his body matches his heart, and everything hurts it these days. "I did, too."

She glances at him again, but says nothing, and after a little while, they both set down their glasses and huddle down under the sheet. He doesn't know why he doesn't go home. He doesn't know why she's not kicking him out. He doesn't know why it is that where a moment ago he was just sitting and then she said two words and her statement has his cock eagerly jumping twitching as though it's startled and it likes it. She watches his face for a minute, then reaches for him roughly, jerking him off hard, twisting, her dark eyes staring intently at him until he looks away. Then she takes her hands off him abruptly and stands, going naked to the window and looking across at the building across the alley. George can't tell if the person in the corresponding flat is up, but she seems unconcerned.

No, that's not true; she seems concerned, just not about being stripped to the skin and totally exposed. Her hands are at her sides, balled into fists, and where the pink morning sunlight turns her skin fiery, mahogany, he can see the shadows where her brow is deeply wrinkled down the middle.

He gets up and goes to stand behind her, puts up his hand but doesn't actually touch her shoulder. He lowers it down again and doesn't try again. He wants to touch and be touched, craves it, and it's odd, because it's not as though he and Fred touched each other like this, but they did touch a lot, casually, unthinkingly, and without any need to consult or consider. He doesn't know how the untwinned survive adolescence.

He's not ready to say a damn thing when she starts talking again; clearly, she's the one with the balls in this room. "It's too easy, you know, to pretend you're him."

George looks down, at the way his skin just goes brightly pink in the same light, at the way hers is warm on her back and arse in the reflection off of him. Merlin. He glows, he's so bloody pale, which is because he has been shut in, first in hiding and moving by night, and then even more in these weeks since--. Since.

She waits for him to say something, then tosses her head. She keeps her hair cropped short these days, so she can't toss all that heavy weight of it they way she used to, but the motion is the same, and George looks up. "What?"

"You have nothing to say? Nothing to confess?"

He shakes his head. He doesn't know what she wants him to say, and here they are experiencing silence for way too long; Fred will come back between them, and George doesn't have the energy to push him away again.

"It's easy to pretend, because I have practice."

George blinks. "What?" He's lost the thread of the conversation, clearly; in three exchanges he's had only two whats and a gesture to offer.

"Because the two of you, you switched. Twice, or at least, twice, with me. And I pretended I didn't know. I mean, I let my boyfriend's brother fuck me." She pauses, then glances at him. "Do you know what I did to him?"

George doesn't know, but he wonders how an enormous squeezing hand has got hold of his ribcage because yeah, they did, they traded a few times over the years, and it was wrong and it was insane and his cock throbs at the memory of then and now all comingled.

After a long frozen moment, in which he tries to breathe, mostly failing, he shakes his head.

"The first time--remember? In the changing room behind the equipment rack? Almost got caught by the Ravenclaws coming in after us?"

He remembers, vividly. Early seventh year, with Quidditch back on and practices just beginning, and he and Fred had switched without much thought, Fred tossing his G jumper over his head and rushing off to catch up with George's girl of the week, leaving him with her. Generations of students knew about the nook behind the rack, and when Ravenclaw showed up early (very Ravenclaw of them), he and Ang had crushed together silent in the corner against the wall, her arse smooth in his hands, her thighs gripping him hard because she'd pulled her feet back so they wouldn’t stick out, and she'd absolutely had the strength to stay there just like that, which had been insanely hot. He nods. "With the knees." His voice is faint, like he's far away from himself, still raspy, still pained.

She's louder, right there, warmer in more than rosy sunrise color, and she half-smiles, half-snorts before her brow furrows again and she cools like walking into a thunderstorm. "Yeah. I knew it was you. Honestly, I've known the two of you…" She trails off, then tries again. "I knew the two of you. Fuck it. I've known you since forever, and your stupid jumpers had nothing to do with it, and I fucked you because it was hot--wrong man, wrong bed, you know, the fantasy, and we weren't that serious, right? And then after I left you I went and found him and told him I wanted more. Which, he'd gone off with whomever you were fucking at the time, I expect--"

"Tracey," George supplies automatically.

"--and he smelled like her, and I made him eat me. I thought… I don't know, really. But I thought if he was willing to trade, he deserved it. And so did you. And I pretended he was you."

George swallows. "He… never told me."

She shakes her head. "Memory charm. I called him you when I came. He was so surprised." She pauses. "I couldn’t exactly leave it, and when the fog cleared I was on my knees, sucking Tracey off him. He couldn't quite figure out what happened, but men are stupid when they come. Stupid and …fragile."

George doesn't remember moving, but then they're on the floor. He's on his back, and her knees are wide beside his shoulders, her teeth and lips scraping his cock. It hurts, but she's grinding down into his face, and he has no capacity to complain.

And she's right, there's a lot of fragility here, in the middle of a lot of other shit. It occurs to him probably it isn't only men, and a moment later he wonders haphazardly whether the sex is even relevant. What are they doing?

After a moment, she lifts away, and he's annoyed, only also maybe relieved, that she's just teasing him again. And then she crawls forward down his body, and holds his cock up so she can drop down over it. He watches her arse lifting and lowering, wincing as her nails--short, but sharp, on long agile fingers--cut into his shins where she's bracing herself. She doesn't look back as she moves, and he only just hears her say, "Easy to pretend this way, too; your feet are just like his."

It's sick that she says it, and sick that he likes it. He pushes her away, sprawling onto her knees, and scrambles out from under, scooting backward on the cheap carpet, adding rug-burned arse to the list of bruises, cuts, and abrasions.

They look at each other warily for a moment before they crawl back up onto the bed, huddling separately, stealing glances at each other. George wonders how he got sorted into Gryffindor because right now he's a coward and a traitor, unable to take useful action and unwilling to get up and leave. Stupid and fragile isn't the half of it.

She shifts carefully on the sheet, wincing, and he thinks she has to be raw and hurting, but she doesn't address it. "The second time, was it his idea?"

"Do you really want to know?" George pulls up his knees and rubs idly at the welts where her nails cut in.

"I really want to know."

"No. You'd argued, and he was being an arse, and I just popped over. I didn't actually mean to. I thought I'd explain him, make his excuses…"

"And instead you took me to bed and got me off four times."

"Really? Four?" George doesn't know why he asks this.

"Yes, four. And then he showed up like nothing was the matter. I assume you told him you fucked me all better."

George purses his lips, thinking that she sounds bitter as much as generally hurt. "I told him I tendered his apologies. He asked if we fucked, and I reckoned if I said we had he'd go have a bit of fun with Jane, remember her? So I said no, just kissed and made up."

"I don't think he believed you. He came to my door perfumed and tired. We fucked anyway. I made him. Told him we wouldn't have made up properly if we didn't."

"I don't think you made him."

"No, I did."

"But he wasn't exactly unwilling, was he?"

"He tell you that?"

"No."

"Huh." She frowns again, then looks up at him. "Why not?"

"What?"

"Why didn't he tell you? I mean, you'd shared before."

He cringes thinking about it, then tries to remember when they stopped that, when they realized it was probably a bad use of their identicalness. He wonders if they ever realized it; his ear made the point moot, didn't it? "Dunno," he says, puzzled. "But then, I didn't tell him, either. I didn't tell him that I took you up to your bed with its ridiculous pink Quidditch sheets and then promptly forgot about their ridiculousness."

"He knew, though." She sighs. "We all didn't tell each other things, which, George, we've been friends for nine years, and you'd been forever. You'd think we'd know better than that."

"So you think I should have. Told him."

She raises her eyebrows. "You think so, too. The two of you… you shared. I mean, it's why this--" she gestured between the them-- "this is so…"

"Wrong? Perverse? Awkward?"

"Complicated."

"Complicated. Yeah." He looks around and locates his pants and last night's too-formal shirt and summons them, standing with a groan and pulling on the pants, then holding the shirt for her to put her arms into the sleeves.

"What's this for?"

His head is clearing, finally, all the potions wearing off, and he thinks he should feel the grief and fear that's been overwhelming him, but mostly he's bloody exhausted, and all he wants to do is close the curtains and sleep for a day and a half. "To put on," he says. "It sounds like we're about to talk about whatever the fuck we're doing, which, probably we should. And much as the fucking is a nice distraction, at this point…" he sighs.

"At this point," she agrees, even though neither of them clarifies.

He finds his trousers and gets out his wand to freshen the sheets, to unrumple them and remove the rather pervasive smell of sex, then gets back in the bed, lying down on pillows that feel starched because he's never been the one that was deft with cleaning charms.

Neither of them says anything, and when he glances over, she's looking at him, eyes big and liquidly dark. She runs her hand over her hair, until finally, he decides this time he needs to be the one to start. "I didn't just trade," he says.

She waits.

"I mean. When we were seventeen, yeah. That was just being stupid and young, and then it was good, and I wanted to tell you, only." Only what? He doesn't know how to finish that, and he wonders when he stopped thinking of himself as young. Or rather, when he started thinking he had been young, two and a half years ago.

"Only how does one say, oh by the way, we already fucked." She concludes the sentence for him, and that's part of it.

"That, and also that it wasn't, you know, to be dreadful. Especially when actually it maybe was, at the time. You know? But I didn't want to explain it, so I didn't say anything, and then it happened again unplanned, and now here we are both pretending I'm him, and both being angry at him, and meanwhile fucking, which…" He searches for the next word for some time, then asks, "Do you know I can't finish sentences correctly?"

"Because he always did. And yeah. I know, and yeah, we probably shouldn't. Pretend you're him. At least, not while we're angry."

"What about when we're not?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. But we've been doing something for a long time. Maybe we should just try to be that again, or do that again. Somehow."

He nods despite having no idea how to repair their relationship or what that even means, then yawns hugely, setting her off. They go back and forth, a yawn and a blink and another yawn as they try to work out what else there is to say. George has nothing, and eventually her eyes flutter shut and stay. He turns on his side, facing away from her, not a rejection but just, he can't quite look at her now.

Just as he's dropping off she scoots closer, pressing against his back and wrapping her arm around his middle. He turns his head toward the ceiling to ask didn't they just say, but before he gets the words out she's shaking her head against his nape and saying no, no, just this. He relaxes again, letting his too-heavy head sink into the pillow. She's right; it's comfortable, and it's comfort, and he thinks maybe now, they can sleep.