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Petunia is sat on the sofa when Pandora gets back home. Just like she has been all day. All fucking day.
The door creaks as Pandora opens it, and then Dorcas can hear the sound of Pandora saying her goodbyes. They're muffled by the distance, but Pandora’s quick, airy voice is prominent, and Petunia also recognises Regulus’s slow, even voice.
Really, Petunia should get up and great Pandora. It’s what a good girlfriend would do. A good girlfriend would be at the door right now, waving right alongside Pandora. Would give her a kiss as she closed the door, rather than listening to it creak closed from her seat on the couch.
“Hey, Dora,” Petunia manages as she hears her girlfriend move through the house. Petunia can't help but think that her voice doesn’t sound right. She tried to make it bubbly like Pandora’s, but it just came out flat.
When Pandora steps into the room, she immediately drops her shopping bags and runs over to give Petunia a hug.
“How was your day?” Pandora asks her before she has even pulled back from the hug. She drops down beside Petunia and snuggles into her side immediately.
“All right,” Petunia mumbles. “I watched some of ‘The Good Place’,” she adds. She only watched half an episode, so it feels almost like she's lying, but Petunia doesn’t want Pandora to worry.
“You really need to finish it so that I can talk about it with you,” Petunia tells her, flashing her a bright smile, which Petunia responds to with a well-practiced one of her own. Pandora’s eyes on her, her focus directly on Petunia feel like too much, too direct. If she keeps looking so closely, she’ll see what’s wrong with Petunia.
“How did the shopping trip go?” Petunia asks, partly to divert Pandora’s focus. It isn’t just for that- she really does care about Pandora, and what she’s been doing- but she can’t stay in her focus. Pandora lights up at the question.
“It was so fun! We went to Primark first, because Dorcas wanted these silver heels to wear with her dress- you know, the green one?” Pandora asked, her voice moving almost too quick to follow. It wasn’t so hard for Petunia to smile when Pandora was talking. Petunia nodded, and Pandora kept speaking. “Well, they didn’t have the shoes any more in Primark, so we tried the charity shop across the road, and you won't guess what we found.”
“Silver shoes?” Petunia tries, even as something inside her just wants to excuse herself and to go and sit in the bathroom.
“We found Marlene,” Pandora exclaimed, her grin almost infectious. “It turns out that Marlene volunteers there, so Dorcas started talking to her at the till while me and Reg ‘looked around’.” She made air quotes for the last part of the phrase, then grabbed Petunia’s hand. “Dorcas even ended up getting her number.”
“Oh, that’s good for her then,” Petunia says. She isn’t looking at Pandora, she doesn’t want her to see how flat her expression is. Petunia does care, she really does, but for some reason, everything just feels… blank. Or, maybe blank isn’t quite the right word. Faded, maybe. Her emotions feel faint. Petunia glances down to her hands, still avoiding Pandora’s gaze, and notices that her free hand is shaking, just slightly.
“Oh!” Pandora stands up quickly, smiling. Petunia feels both upset that she’s gone and grateful for the space to breathe. “I got you something,” Pandora tells her as she fetches her bags from the entrance of the room.
Petunia smiles, even as something inside her twists. Pandora is getting her gifts, while Petunia sits at home unable to do anything. When Pandora sits back down beside her, she has to resist the urge to squirm away. It’s nothing to do with Pandora, and everything to do with her.
“Look!” Pandora exclaims as she pulls a box from the bag. She hands it to Petunia, looking uncharacteristically nervous.
Petunia opens the top and stares, a smile slipping onto her lips. It’s a small set; a cute Panda mug with matching fluffy socks. Petunia loves Pandas, she always has (which is something that definitely increased when she got a ‘Panda’ girlfriend) and the gift is perfect. She gives Pandora a quick kiss on her cheek, still unable to stop the smile on her face.
“Thank you,” Petunia tells her wonderful girlfriend earnestly, but even then, Petunia feels… inadequate. “Do you want me to make you a fancy dinner or do your hair?” she offers, but Pandora waves the suggestions away.
“This isn’t a gift just so you can give one back,” Pandora laughs, “and besides, I used Regulus’s money. He decided to pay for everything.”
“I should try shopping with him sometime,” Petunia suggests, and when Pandora laughs, she smiles.
“Have you eaten?” Pandora asks her. She wraps an arm around Petunia’s shoulder and leans against her. Her cheek is still cold from being outside, but Petunia doesn’t pull away.
“I—” Petunia hesitates. She hasn’t eaten. It had felt like such a big task, so impossible. She doesn’t want to worry Pandora by telling her, but she also doesn’t want to lie. “Not yet,” she admits quietly. She adds a second later, for the sake of honesty, “Nothing.”
Pandora wraps her in a hug, which Petunia takes a second to relax into. Once she does, she tries to take a deep breath, only for her chest to shudder as if she’s about to cry.
“Bad day?” Pandora asks her gently. Petunia nods, then realises that Pandora can't see her in a hug and hums affirmatively instead. Pandora moves a hand up to Petunia’s hair and starts carding her hand through it slowly. Petunia normally keeps her hair tied up, but that morning, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to care. “Did anything happen with Lily?” Pandora asks her after a second, and Petunia can hear the carefulness in her voice.
“No,” Petunia whispers.
“Did Vernon try to message you?” Pandora tried. “If he has, I will not hesitate to find him and drop his phone out of a window.”
Petunia laughs, and even that feels shaky.
“It’s not anyone. I just…” Petunia pauses, trying to find the words. “I feel like everything is a little faded today? Like I'm feeling things through a screen.”
“I'm sorry,” Pandora tells her softly, and squeezes her tighter into her hug. “I know what you mean.” She pulls back from the hug to hold Petunia’s shoulders and look her in the eyes. “Is there anything we can do? Food, a hot drink, call Lily?”
Petunia hesitates for a long moment before she says, “A hot drink, maybe?”
Pandora helps her up then and leads her through to the kitchen. Their home is small, so it’s only a second before Petunia is being sat on one of the tall chairs near the counter.
Pandora wanders around the kitchen for a minute, getting a second mug (Petunia’s panda mug is set on the counter) and filling up the kettle. Neither one of them speaks while she does it, and Petunia relaxes when the rumble of the kettle fills the background.
“What drink, love?” Pandora asks Petunia. “Tea or hot chocolate? I'm banning coffee for now, it’s too late for caffein.”
Petunia huffs a small laugh and answers, “Hot chocolate please.”
The kettle gets louder and louder. Petunia glances at the counter in front of her and wonders if Pandora would be concerned if she rested her head on it. She doesn’t in the end. After another few seconds, the kettle clicks and goes quiet.
For another few moments, they don’t speak, and the only sound in the room is the clinking of a spoon against the mug as Pandora stirs in the powder. Finally, Pandora sets the mugs on the counter in front of Petunia and sits beside her.
“Want to talk?” Pandora asks her softly. Petunia avoids her eyes, looking instead at the small swirls of steam twirling from the top of the mug. Pandora didn’t add milk.
“Yeah,” Petunia answers, but she doesn’t add anything more. She doesn’t know what to say. It’s hard to explain how everything feels so… so empty and hopeless, when Petunia can't even name what exactly is wrong.
“Okay,” Pandora says once it becomes clear that Petunia isn’t speaking, “are you good with telling me how you feel today?”
“Dull.” Petunia sighs slightly and picks up her mug by the handle. Her hand shakes slightly as she lifts it- Petunia can see it tremble in the air- and no amount of glaring is making it stop. She takes a sip from the hot chocolate, but it’s too hot and her tongue burns. She sets the mug back on the counter. “I just feel like there’s nothing.”
“Nothing where?” Pandora asks softly. Petunia risks a glance back towards her, and sees that Pandora is looking right at her. She looks away quickly, at her hands resting on the counter. When Petunia lifts one slightly, it starts shaking again.
“In my chest?” she tries. “Or maybe my heart, I'm not sure.” Petunia forces herself to take a slow breath in, but she can still feel the emptiness in her chest. “I don’t think it’s emotional. I just… I feel like I’ve not got enough air. I breathe in as deep as I can, but I still feel like I need more. Like I need a second set of lungs to feel alive.”
“I can be your second set of lungs,” Pandora offers, and Petunia smiles flatly.
It’s a sweet gesture, but what Petunia is lacking isn’t love. Fuck, Petunia is loved plenty- her sister, her girlfriend, all her Uni friends. Petunia isn’t sure why she feels so empty, but it’s not a romantic lack. It isn’t something that Pandora can just fix with a sweet gesture.
“Thank you, but I'm not sure that’s what will help. You love me and I know that and that’s not the problem,” Petunia says, words spilling out of her mouth. “I don’t know what the problem is either. I’ve got friends, I’ve got Lily, I’ve got you. I don’t get why I'm still sad!”
Pandora didn’t speak for a second, and something felt tight in Petunia’s chest. She snuck another glance towards her girlfriend, but her expression wasn’t disgusted at all, it was… contemplative.
“Sometimes,” Pandora started slowly, “we can feel sad, or stressed, or anxious for no direct reason.” She paused again, and Petunia could feel a tense ball of anxiety in her chest even then, even with no source. “You aren’t doing anything wrong by not feeling perfect, you know.”
Petunia stares at the surface of her hot chocolate for a moment while she thinks over Pandora’s words. It makes sense, it all seems so obvious, and yet even now she doesn’t want to talk about it. Even sat there beside Pandora, who just told her that she cares, she feels like it’s unfair to talk about it.
Petunia focuses on what Pandora just said, takes a deep breath, and speaks.
“I— Logically, I know that. It makes sense, right?” Petunia glances over at Pandora, who nods. She looks sad, and Petunia notices how the low lighting of the room (they didn’t turn the lights on when the entered the kitchen, not that Petunia noticed until now) softens Pandora’s features, makes them faint. Pandora’s skin looks a light blue, and her lips almost purple. The open door lets light shine through, leaving a strip of pale peach along one of Pandora’s cheeks and over the counter. “I just don’t always automatically think that way.”
Pandora smiles, and though her teeth only appear for a second, Petunia wishes she could photograph it.
“You never have to be perfect with me,” Pandora whispers. “I don’t love you because I think you’re perfect.” Pandora lifts a hand to cradle Petunia’s face and leans in to press a soft kiss to her lips. Petunia lingers as long as she can before Pandora pulls away to speak again. She takes another deep breath, which still doesn’t feel like enough, and Pandora says, “You know, you don’t have to, but if you want you can talk to me about things like this.” Pandora keeps her eyes fixed on Petunia until she has to grip her hot chocolate again to look away. “I don’t mind. I love helping you,” Pandora tells her, and Petunia would have to be deaf to miss how genuine Pandora sounded. “I’d far prefer to spend a week straight talking to you about these things then to have you struggling for one day.”
Petunia lifts the hot chocolate to her lips and blows on it gently, before taking another sip. It doesn’t burn this time, even though it feels hot against her mouth.
They spend hours talking together, until the last dregs of their drinks are cold, and the night is late. When Petunia washes her mug, her hands still tremble. When she kisses Pandora again before they brush their teeth, and she can taste hot chocolate, she still feels breathless.
She feels hopeful too though. It feels different.