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“So you intend to, what?” She asked. “Just follow me around until you get bored?”
"Oh, darling, the day I grow bored of you will be the day the universe stops spinning.” The words are spoken with such reverence, so lovingly.
++++-
It all started with that notebook.
Just a plain leather notebook with lined pages. Xeno had carried it for as long as Pandora had known them, since that fateful day in sixth year.
It was utterly and completely unremarkable to her, it was a part of him, just like the crystal braces she always wore was a part of her. He took it everywhere, always had it stashed in some pocket.
Pandora had never seen its contents and, frankly, she didn't think much of them. It was just a notebook, probably full of notes or drawings or something of the sort.
She hadn't been ready for…well this.
The notebook was laying on the desk, opened, pages exposed. She hadn't meant to look, really, she hadn't.
But she had, because it was hard not to.
They were notes, that much was obvious. Neat little bullet points and summaries at the bottom of the page. That wasn't shocking.
What really shocked her was what the notes were about.
They were about her.
Neat little bullet points of things she said often, little unconscious habits that she fell into, her favorites and things she hated, summaries of what she did. It was all laid out in vivid detail, carefully documented like some sacred experiment.
“Xeno…what is this, exactly?”
They shrugged. “I don't know. Just thoughts.”
“It's all about me.”
“I think about you a lot.”
“These are notes, observations, detailed ones.” Pandora pressed.
She couldn't say she was mad, not really. She wasn't, strangely enough, sure it was weird, sure it made her feel a bit put off but Xeno had never killed so much as a bug. Really, they did no harm.
“What are you doing? Studying me like a lab rat?”
“Lab rats are tested on.” They said gently, as if this was a normal thing to explain. “I don't intend to do anything but observe.”
“So you intend to, what?” She asked. “Just follow me around until you get bored?”
Not that she would ever object to them, they were inseparable anyway, what was wrong with being a little closer?
"Oh, darling, the day I grow bored of you will be the day the universe stops spinning.”
There's a pause, a beat of silence that fills the room.
“You're really quite special, you know?”
+++++
“Would you like to hold it?”
There's this gleam in their eyes, almost manic as they watch the spider crawling, ever so slowly, up her arm.
She doesn't flinch, doesn't breathe. She has done this a thousand times before, bugs don't frighten her. Pandora had been a wild untamed thing since she was born and she would stay that way until she died.
“He needs a name.” She said softly.
“You can choose,” they said, brushing hair from their eyes.
Pandora studies the arachnid like it holds the secret to immortality, pausing to chew her lip for a moment. “...Zephyr…yeah that's it.”
“It's beautiful, love.”
“What are you doing to it?” Xeno asks, shifting, trying to catch a glimpse of their hair in the mirror.
“Braiding it,” Pandora said simply.
“Why?”
She shrugs. “It'll look nice.”
“You look nice.”
“You're really pale, y'know?” Pandora said. “You must bruise really easily.”
“Do you want to find out?”
If it had been anybody else Pandora would've rolled her eyes, would've told them off for making everything about shagging and snogging. But it was Xeno.
So she didn't tell them off. She leaned forward and kissed them.
“It's for magic.” Xeno said, adjusting the camera again.
“I don't think magic needs fifty pictures of me.” Pandora said, brushing bleached hair out of her face.
“Maybe not. But I do.”
“But why?”
“Because you're gorgeous.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Why?”
“You just are.”
“You're bleeding.”
Any other person would have asked for a bandaid or wiped their pricked finger on their shirt, but Pandora had learned that Xenophillius Lovegood was the farthest thing from normal.
They studied the droplet of blood on their finger like a particularly difficult problem, tilting their head, hair falling into their eyes.
Then they pressed the finger to her lips.
And what else would Pandora do but open her mouth?
Maybe she was a little crazy for liking the way it tasted, for reveling in that copper taste that filled her mouth.
“Come here,” she whispered.
Xeno leaned a little closer and Pandora pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving that tell tale pink mark.
He did wash it off, didn't wipe it away.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“I love you more than the moon loves the stars.”
“I love you more than flowers love the sun.”
+++++
“Special?”
“Very special. I've never met anyone quite like you.” Xeno said, wrapping their arms around her waist. “Love, darling, star, don't be mad.”
“I'm not mad…I'm just confused.’
“About what, daisy-flower?”
“Why?”
“Like I said,” Xeno went on, releasing her waist and stepping around so they were standing face to face. “You’re quite special.”
“You're really weird,” Pandora said and her voice had that dreaminess in it, that aloofness. “And really pretty.”
Platinum blond hair falling into their face, eyes boring into her soul, one blue and one green, both like ice. Those unnerving eyes hold hers as he sinks down, ever so slowly, ever so gracefully, to their knees, cupping her hands in theirs.
“I'm yours you know?” They said, pressing their lips to her knuckles. “Completely and utterly yours.”
Pandora tilts her head for a moment, thinking, then she lowers herself down, sitting criss-cross in front of them. “And I'm yours.”
And it's just the two of them, sitting face to face, staring into each other's eyes.
“Kiss me?”
Xeno’s lips taste like sugar, maybe because they ate way too much of it. It was nice, the feel of their lips against hers.
Their fingers wrap around the necklace she's wearing, that silver chain that she'd had for as long as she remembered, and they pulled her closer, closer, closer, bodies melting together.