Fic: Lumos
Pairing: Turnbull/RayV
Words: 910
Rating: PG
Summary: Ray and Renfield flee Chicago in the aftermath of the battle at the Consulate. Separated from Fraser and the muggle-borns they were protecting, they lay low.
Notes: Yep. Followup to Nox, Harry Potter-verse AU. Blame slwatson for the encouragement and chatter and theorizing and l0stmyrel1g10n for being sweet and checking it over for canon problems and such.

Descendo - Partis Temporus - Avis - Obliviate - Wingardium - Incarcerous - Incendio - Imperius - Nox - Lumos

"Lumos."

I've warded the place up as best I can. I know a guy, and that means I can use the guy's place while he's taking care of a few things up north, but knowing a guy's as much an asset these days as a liability. We're on an island somewhere on Lake Michigan, I know that much. No idea how safe this place actually is, but we never do anymore. I don't wanna go lighting the place up and advertise it's occupied, so we keep to wand-light.

There's a bitch of a painting in the hall, and she glares at me when I light my wand, crossing her arms with a nasty 'hmph!'

"Yeah, yeah. I get it," I'm whispering. "Day in, day out, you're stuck in a frame in some guy's hallway with nothing to do but practice a nasty attitude so you're ready to irritate any random wizard that comes along with a light. You'd think you'd jump at the opportunity for a little conversation. Maybe a game of cards. Noooo, you gotta bust my balls just 'cause I don't wanna trip on the rug and die..."

I know she's gesturing at me but I'm moving as I complain so I don't really see it. Some of the other portraits watch me, but she's the loudest. There's a meadow scene at the end of the hall. A butterfly flits around in its painting. I think Ren'll like that one.

I gesture with my wand and I feel him round the corner and take up position behind me. We climb the stairs together. We're not really worried or I wouldn't be stupid enough to go bitching at the painting. We've cleared the house already. Just paranoid of booby traps. Never know in a place like this, in a time like now.

More random family members of the guy I know look at us curiously. Some old wizard with a ridiculous mustache and zigzag-pattern robes snorts a laugh at us and I wave a middle finger at the portrait. He fires off an offended 'I say!' in an oldy-worldy English accent and I smirk, 'cause it's funny, I don't care if Ren's shaking his head back there.

"Stop taunting the portraits, dear." It's affectionate. Ren's not really a nag, so much, and I guess you wouldn't be when you've got a whole lot more to worry about than whether you did the dishes right or remembered to feed the falcon. Even then, I know it's kind of a front 'cause we're both still fucked up from the battle outside the consulate. We're just holding it together 'til we can collapse again.

We've almost forgotten what it's like to feel safe.

I laugh in response, flashing a smile at another portrait, this one a pretty cute looking witch, and I get a wink back.

Okay. So not all of this guy's old relatives were stuffy.

When I open the door it's wand out, and the white light of it shows us... a plain ol' bedroom. Which I guess in my experience is rarely actually plain. We go in slow. Check things over. Poke a few things for traps.

Clear as far as we can tell.

Ren mutters a few incantations over a trunk at the foot of the bed, and it comes up safe. I cast a few protegos and seal the door, and he starts pushing the trunk, shoving it up against the entrance. I dunno why. The spell's stronger than anything he could put in front of it, but I guess it's a security thing. For a pureblood, the man always did have a kind of balanced idea of how useful magic actually was.

He's barely looking up from the thing before he's grabbing me by the coat, yanking me to the bed and dragging me down, both of us still fully dressed.

Ren snakes around me tighter than any incarcerous and God, if I don't squeeze him just as tight. I feel all his holding together kinda go, and he shudders, just smelling me.

I smell him, too. Man. One second. One second off and I woulda missed and he woulda been another lifeless face staring at the sky, pristine as the minute before but gone forever anyway.

Our wands are still lit, which makes for a kind of eerie light behind both of us, but I figure it's more like a halo when it comes to him. Yeah, yeah. I'm cheesy. I know it. His wand presses into my back. Mine presses into his. I feel his lips press to my neck, open, warm. He's pretty sensory, my Ren, and I know by now he's honestly just tasting. Like some kind of imprint he can get off me, or leave on me, or maybe both.

"Nox."

I tip my head back, giving him my neck.

There's a trail of marks left where my collar ain't gonna cover it by the time he comes up to breathe, our eyes locked by what little light one wand half-buried in my coat gives.

"Nox," he whispers. It's cracked, like he's promising me forever and not just darkening his wand, and God does it hurt.

I kiss him in the dark. Imprint of my own, I guess.