RP: Forced Celibacy Who: Marcus/Ginny When: Tuesday, August 22 Where: Ginny's house What: Marcus and Ginny spend time together for the first time since her medical "thing" Warnings: None
Ginny had been an anxious mess all bleeding day, and it didn't help that her uterus still felt like it was being carved up, though she was hoping that would calm down in time for practice tomorrow so she wouldn't have to take an excessive amount of pain potions to get through it. But Marcus was there, so she was doing her best to pretend she wasn't in any pain at all. And she still hadn't figured out what she was going to tell him. But she knew that she wanted to keep seeing him; she only hoped that he would feel the same even if she did tell him what had happened and what she'd chosen to do about it.
"Did you want anything to drink?" she asked him as she poked through her fridge to see what she had. It had been a while since she'd done the shopping, and she was tempted to see if she could get Luna to pick up some things for her--that would feel a bit like taking advantage of her friend though, and she did try not to do that. She found some vodka in her freezer and was tempted to mix herself a drink, but had been warned that alcohol can make the bleeding heavier, so she hesitated, waiting instead for his answer.
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Marcus thought that Ginny looked a little pale and he was concerned that her recent health troubles might be more serious than she let on. He wasn't used to worrying about someone like this and he liked Ginny enough that he wanted to take care of her which was an entirely new experience for him; Terence and Adrian would laugh themselves silly if they could see him now.
He moved behind her as she inspected the contents of her fridge, a hand coming to rest on her lower back. "Wouldn't mind just water or something," he said, noting that it was a little bare as he peered over her shoulder. "Or whatever you're having."
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At the feel of his hand on her lower back, Ginny closed her eyes, reveling in the touch for a moment, the pressure of his hand actually alleviating some of the pain in that region. It was amazing and bizarre how that worked sometimes. "Water's probably the smartest choice," she said after blowing out a soft breath. "Should we eat out of cartons or grab plates?" she asked as she got their drinks.
"What did you pick up, anyway?" She was slowly getting her appetite back, though she still hadn't eaten much the last few days. She did have some hope that she would be more or less back to normal by next week.
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"Might as well grab a couple plates," Marcus said, his hand rubbing gently. "Didn't know what you fancied so I picked up a few different things. We had Thai the other week, so I went with Indian." He hadn't chosen anything too spicy, though. "But I've never ordered from this place before, so this might be an adventure."
If Ginny didn't like the food, he thought, he could always pop out and get something else.
"You're looking less stressed than last time I saw you. How are things going?"
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He was being awfully sweet, and she couldn't help wondering if he'd feel differently if he knew precisely what had gone on. How would he have felt about it if she'd included him in the decision. They were still a long ways off from making those sorts of decisions together, in her opinion, though it might have been a bit different if it had been him who'd impregnated her. "Indian is great, not to worry," she assured him with a small smile. "And it's quite fun to be adventurous now and again."
"I'm feeling a bit less stressed," she agreed as she reached up to grab a couple plates from the cupboard, handing them off to him. "And things are going better, I think. I'm quite a bit... sore still, and I've got to minimize all physical activity for a couple of weeks, though I'll get to start up with light practice tomorrow," she explained. She wondered if she would need to spell it out for him, that she wouldn't be able to be intimate with him for the immediate future.
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Taking the plates, Marcus nodded. He had a feeling that he knew what she was hinting at, but he wouldn't press the matter. He didn't want to make things tense between them. "Yeah, you've got to look after yourself. Especially at the start of the season." It would have killed him to miss the first match, just like it had felt like a punch to the gut this time last year when it had really hit home that he wouldn't be playing professionally again.
"Light practice sounds good. Hopefully you really will be back on the pitch." He grinned, trying to keep the tone light. "It'll be a shame to see the Falcons thrash you, though."
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That comment hit just a little too close to home, as she knew it was her own bloody fault she was missing these first two matches. If she'd paid closer attention and taken her symptoms more seriously rather than just writing them off as a bad stomach bug, she'd have been able to deal with it far earlier and been cleared to open the season with her team. "Right, yeah," she murmured, brushing it off.
"Oh, I will be," she said confidently, reaching out to poke his chest as she wrinkled her nose at him. "And you're supposed to be rooting for me, remember?"
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Marcus frowned briefly, but her poke make him smirk. "I will be. I hope you score lots of goals. I just hope they score a few more." He took a chance and ducked his head for a quick kiss. "It's gonna take a while to change thirty years of habits." Being Falmouth born and bred it might take more than an interesting, attractive witch to sway his allegiances, even if she was a hell of a player.
He could smell the food that he'd brought with him and it was making him hungry. "If it makes you happy," he continued, "maybe I can be persuaded to wear green to the match."
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That actually made her chuckle a bit, though she shook her head. "No, you should hope I score lots of goals but that their seeker catches the snitch before I can score enough," she pointed out teasingly. She had no control over the seekers, after all, and if she did her job well enough, the seekers didn't matter. Of course, it was rare to get enough of a lead that the snitch didn't matter, but it was always her goal.
She did enjoy that quick kiss though, even if her libido had taken a pretty hefty hit. It would return in time. "Well lucky for you, I don't expect you to ever switch loyalties entirely." That would just be cruel; as he'd pointed out, he was born and bred Falmouth.
Ginny gasped playfully. "It would make me happy, but I'm afraid my most effective powers of persuasion are out of commission for a bit, but I'm sure I can come up with something to entice you." Perhaps she'd even offer a trade--go with him to watch a Falcons game wearing grey and white, though how dull would that be?
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"I knew there was a reason I liked you." Actually, if Marcus thought about it, that really was one of the reasons he liked Ginny so much. There wasn't any pressure with her to be anything but his usual - sometimes grumpy - self.
Finding a suitable spot to put the plates down, he laughed. "I'll be honest, I doubt you'd have to do much to persuade." He started unpacking the food, an excuse not to look at her in case he got too embarrassed. "Kind of worth it just to see you smile."
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"Only one?" Ginny retorted with a quirked brow and faint smirk, as if saying there were plenty of reasons to like her. And she rather thought there were, recent medical slip-up aside, though maybe he would be understanding if she were to tell him. She couldn't help but worry though.
As he dished out the food, she pulled her lower lip between her teeth to hide how wide her smile was threatening to get. "Yeah?" She wanted to be cheesy and say something about how easy it was to smile around him, but she wasn't sure her stomach could take that level of sappy just then. It was enough to just think it. "I'll try to only use that information for good," she teased him lightly.
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"There might be a few other reasons," Marcus said, a small smirk of his own playing on his lips. She was gorgeous and challenging; no one else had ever kept him on his toes the way she did.
"Good. I'd hate for you to use that for nefarious purposes." He broke off a piece of naan and popped it in his mouth. "I'd really be in trouble then."
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Ginny chuckled when he agreed there might be other reasons; it was a bit silly, but she hadn't realized how much she needed a little bit of silly after everything from the last week. It still surprised her that she was able to find such a thing with Marcus Flint, but she wasn't questioning, just enjoying it.
"Do I strike you as the nefarious sort?" she asked teasingly, grabbing her plate and one of the drinks and nodding her head toward the living room. She wanted to just eat and then curl up with him, as ridiculously needy as that made her feel.
"D'you... want to know what happened?" she asked him hesitantly once they'd settled on the couch, her leg criss-crossed on the cushion in front of her and her plate balanced on her lap.
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"Hmm." Marcus narrowed his eyes at her. "I think you can be sneaky when you put your mind to it." He couldn't keep a straight face, though, and laughed.
Marcus had his fork dug into his food when Ginny asked if he wanted to know about her recent problems. She seemed hesitant, so he took a moment to consider whether he really did. "Only if you want to tell me," he said finally. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
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He wasn't wrong there, and as she'd told Harry sometime back, the hat had wanted to put her in Slytherin, but she was still trying to play up the innocent act. "Well, I am a redhead," she quipped easily.
While she appreciated that he was leaving it up to her, it didn't actually answer her question. She hummed softly, looking down at her plate and shifting the food around it a bit before taking a bit. She didn't want this to become the elephant in the room between them, and she could see it happening whether or not he knew. And it was bound to come out eventually, wasn't it? Even if it was just a casual remark she might make in the future once it was all less fresh. Of course, she was assuming he'd still be around at that point, and that was something she wasn't quite ready to look at more closely just yet.
"I just... don't want it to change how you look at me, is all," she explained softly once she'd finished that bite, hesitating before peeking over at him. "I... was pregnant. And now I'm not." She wanted to blurt out that it hadn't been his, that if it had, she would have told him about the situation and her decision before following through with it. Instead, she just held her breath as she waited to see how he might respond to it.
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Taking a bite of his food, Marcus let that statement sink in. His expression was carefully blank - that was a big thing to announce. Bigger, in fact, than he had expected. He didn't really know how to feel. After all, this wasn't a conversation he'd ever had with a woman. "But you're alright now?" he checked. The way she phrased it made him think it was a no longer pregnant on purpose thing rather than no longer pregnant because nature had other ideas. Should he be concerned that she hadn't involved him at all? Or maybe he wasn't involved on any level - they had first connected under less than conventional circumstances and he knew the papers had been levelling all sort of accusations at her a few months ago.
"You didn't go through all this alone, did you?" he asked, frowning.
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That that was his first response had some of the tension in her shoulders falling away, and she smiled at him, just a slight upturning at the corners of her mouth. "Yeah, I'm alright now. It went smoothly, no complications. Just have to be careful with physical activity a bit longer." She shrugged, as if this were all a much smaller deal than it was. It didn't have to be a big deal though, did it?
"No! Definitely not. Luna went with me and was here afterward. She is the best best friend there is, you know," she answered, smiling a bit more warmly at the memory of how wonderfully there Luna had been for her. "And... I don't want you to think... I mean, I had an appointment beforehand to sort out the details of... everything. It wasn't yours, Marcus. It was from before the bookshop," she explained more than a little awkwardly. She just really hoped he wouldn't be upset with her for that, considering it had been before they'd really connected.
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Marcus nodded, that suspicion confirmed. It hadn't been his and that knowledge brought a sort of... relief? Did that make him a bad person? "It's okay," he assured her. "I can't say I'm particularly inclined to pass on the family name." He was thirty-four years old and it had never been a strong desire for him the way that it seemed to be for some men; he didn't even think that he could blame his lack of serious adult relationships. His own father wasn't exactly an inspiration or someone to emulate.
"I'm, er... I'm glad Luna could help." He was nervous to meet her one day. They were clearly very close and if Luna didn't like him then that could put a dampener on things between him and Ginny. "From everything you've told me about her, she sounds great."
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At that admission, Ginny felt herself relax even more, and she smiled almost hesitantly at him. "Yeah? Really?" Most of the men she'd dated--Harry in particular--had wanted a family, and she wondered at times if that was why she'd been so open to having a relationship with a woman, even if that had blown up spectacularly in her face. "I... don't want kids. It's why I finally broke things off with Harry for good," she admitted, knowing their on-again-off-again relationship had been excessively followed in the papers. She was definitely going to take care to make sure she didn't get pregnant again, though.
"She is great," she agreed easily. "She's kind and generous and, yeah, a bit quirky. I'll have to officially introduce you two sometime." She wasn't sure when, as Luna had been so busy with the school, but she had a break coming up soon, she knew. Of course, she'd be back on the pitch soon too, but they'd sort it out.
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"Yeah." Marcus shrugged, pushing some rice around his plate. "I don't think I've ever put that into words before, but I don't think I'm the paternal sort." He'd known that Lisa had wanted that sort of thing eventually, so he'd ended the relationship before either could get in too deep. "My dad was kind of a bastard, not a good role model." He gestured vaguely at his forearm with his fork. "But I reckon I'd be a good uncle." Marcus smiled. "You know, the one who gives the loud, noisy presents or puts the kids on a broom. And then hands the kids back at the end of the day."
He laughed softly. "Sounds a bit like my sister, to be honest."
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She didn't think there was anything wrong with not being the paternal sort, especially as she didn't really feel like the maternal sort. While most women seemed to coo and gush over babies, she had to work hard not to make a face and turn away. Maybe it was because she was the youngest or because she'd always thought her mum's life had been wasted on raising kids, as awful as that probably sounded. After she'd gone away to Hogwarts though, her mum had seemed so lost and still fixated on being a housewife and mum, and shouldn't there have been more than that? She just didn't want to go down that same path.
"Well you've turned out all right anyway, and it's not like I had terrible role models. I think some people just aren't wired for it." She shrugged, not sure if she was right about that, but it made sense to her. "Ha, yeah, I know the type. That's probably going to be Charlie, and I bet nobody gives him as much grief about it as they do me. Though honestly, I've not been a fantastic aunt so far. There's so much bloody pressure whenever anyone in my family sees me with one of the kids. 'Oh, when are you going to settle down, Ginny?' and 'Don't you want a family? You've got to be so lonely!' As if all there is to life is getting married and popping out babies," she ranted, surprising herself a bit. She'd never actually articulated these feelings, and it felt a bit strange to be doing it now. She flushed a bit and then glanced down at her food. "But it'd probably be nice to get to be an aunt without all of that."
She liked hearing him laugh just then. "Yeah? Maybe I'll get to meet her someday?" Because she did actually like him an awful lot more than she'd anticipated when she'd gone home with him at the bookshop, and that seemed like something that probably should happen at some point if they were going to get serious, though she wasn't in any rush for that to happen.
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"Yeah, I guess it must be different for women." Marcus hadn't really thought of it like that before. He smiled a little as she ranted, glad to see a bit of the colour back in her after how withdrawn she'd seemed before.
Marcus nodded slowly. "Yeah. But not for a while." Especially not with all the thoughts and feelings that must be going around Ginny's head of late. "She's, uh, she's a Legilimens. A pretty good one, I guess. Flavia can be kind of intense if you're not used to her." He loved his sister but he wasn't going to inflict her on anyone unprepared. "On the other hand, you probably know most of my friends from the league."
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It was different for women, but that seemed to be something society as a whole didn't want to change yet. And it wasn't something she could change all on her own, either.
Ginny's brow furrowed automatically when he seemed hesitant to let her meet his sister in the immediate future. Only then he explained, and she realized that if he wanted to give her time to prepare to meet Flavia, that meant he wanted to keep her around, and that was a surprisingly pleasant thought. "Ahh, probably good to give it a bit more time then," she agreed easily.
"Know of, yeah, but that's different from knowing. That's all right though." She shrugged a bit, thinking there really was no rush on any of it, which was something she enjoyed. It was refreshing to be with someone that didn't seem to have a timeline for how they wanted their relationship to progress; it felt relaxed and natural in a way none of her previous ones had.
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Marcus picked up his glass of water, taking a sip. "Yeah, you'll meet them eventually." Terence in particular would be all over the prospect of properly meeting a woman that Marcus really liked. "We'll take our time. With everything," he added. "I've never really dated anyone for more than a couple of months, so I'm kind of learning how to do this as I go." He shrugged, a little bashful. "You're worth it, though."
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"Yeah, we will," Ginny echoed with a small smile. She'd never been with someone so relaxed about the whole thing, and she was feeling very good about having opened up to him, despite how raw it had made her feel to say the words out loud. And though she didn't want to admit it, she absolutely loved that he saw her as worth navigating the whole relationship terrain for.
"Well, you're not so bad at it, so you shouldn't worry about it. I wasn't really sure I'd want to give something more steady and serious another go, but... honestly? You've made it really easy. And really, the pressure's already off now, with us being on the same page as far as procreating goes," she pointed out, her smile growing a bit at the thought. It really did feel amazing to be with someone she actually enjoyed and knowing that they weren't going to pressure her to pop out babies.
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Since he wasn't one for ostentatious or over-the-top anything - despite what that glitterfest of a birthday party might have made people think - so he was all for the understated, relaxed thing that he had going on with Ginny. Maybe this week wasn't the most relaxed, but when was the last time someone had trusted him with such a huge, personal secret.
"Yeah. And we can talk about that more when you're feeling better. I should be doing my part in that."
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"Wait, doing your part in what?" she asked, her brows furrowing faintly. She couldn't help the way her mind jumped to the concept of procreating, and he was definitely doing his part there. Until this situation, she rather thought they were doing pretty damn well in the practicing for procreation without any intention of procreating thing.
Though maybe he was referring to making sure they were on the same page in things, she realized belatedly. And she couldn't disagree with that--it would probably be good for them to make it a point to discuss these things more often, but she truly hadn't wanted to put any pressure on things between them. She liked how they were and didn't want to change that.
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"I just mean, like, protection," he said, though he felt a little awkward saying it aloud. "It should be a joint responsibility, right? Except we've never really spoken about it before." It had been so easy to caught up in the excitement of being with her. "Which is my fault, I guess."
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Ginny pressed her lips together in a tight line, trying to hide her smile as he elaborated. It did make sense now, and she couldn't say he was wrong that it should be something they both took responsibility for, but his awkwardness in saying so was rather amusing and even a bit charming.
"Yeah, I suppose it is," she finally agreed once she thought she could keep her amusement in check. "I've made sure I'm doubly covered now, though it isn't something we'll need to worry about for at least a couple more weeks. I'm not sure how you'll cope with having to keep your bits to yourself," she teased him lightly. It would be more accurate to say she wasn't sure how she would cope, if not for the pain and other physical consequences she was suffering at the moment.
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Marcus rolled his eyes. His cheeks were a little pink, but he could blame that on the hot food. "I'm sure I'll find a way to get through this," he said dryly. He'd gone months between partners in the past - funnily enough it was just when he had decided to explore more that his path had crossed with Ginny's. "We'll be fine."
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She absolutely loved seeing that bit of color in his cheeks, but she wasn't going to poke him about it. Not tonight. "Hmm, I don't know, once I've got the all clear from my healer, we might have to make sure to make up for this lost time." No, she wasn't some sex-crazed lunatic, but she did enjoy sex, and it was what had initially brought them together, so she didn't think it was a terrible thing to suggest.
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He grinned at her suggestion. "Yeah, I think we could probably make that happen." If she kept saying things like that, it was going to make this necessary celibacy even harder. But he could live with it; Ginny was worth it.