photoelectric;

Her hands had started shaking and she knew that she needed another cigarette, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Honestly, she didn’t know what to say. Of course she was furious, but she was afraid if they started fighting she would say something that she would end up regretting down the line. They had come far enough for her to know when to shut up. Now was one of those times.

She absolutely hated when he called her Weasley. The name ground on her nerves worse than anything else he said. They would have to trek incredibly far to get out of the hell he had gotten them in to–and she wasn’t sure she would be able to stay silent for much longer. That wasn’t something she had ever been good at. Holding her tongue was worse than a death sentence for most of the Weasley family. It was another unfortunate thing she had inherited from her father. Damn him, damn this fucking ‘mission’ and fucking damn the man standing next to her.

“When no one’s around you don’t have to call me Weasley.” It came out more vehemently than she had meant it to, but alas, she was thirsty and her feet were starting to hurt. Not that she would voice any of that to him, she was sure that he would mock her. She simply took out her water bottle and cast a nonverbal aguamenti. The water tasted good, but the sour taste in her mouth remained. She’d hoped that it would have helped flush out her emotions.

They followed his fucking wand for a couple more ‘point me’s’ before the fucking words started grating on her nearly as much as ‘Weasley’ did and she couldn’t contain herself. “You didn’t think of bringing spare batteries? You didn’t test them yourself?” This was dangerous waters and she knew it. The whole ‘I’m worthless’ debate was like to come up and she couldn’t handle a round of pity parties. Not right now.

“You’re supposed to be training me, not wasting time with this bullshite.” It was hard to train someone you were dating, obviously. It was harder when it was her, she was sure. Rose hadn’t ever been a good listener, on top of being a self-proclaimed know-it-all.

Jake whirled on Rose, blocking the narrow path they’d been on for the past few minutes. “Yeah, I do have to call you Weasley. Because right now it’s the only thing keeping me from yelling at you as your fiancé instead of your CO. And I’m pretty sure you’d prefer that I stick to the latter.” He turned back around, taking off down the path in a manner that could only be described as “storming,” doing his best to ignore Rose’s angry rantings. Which lasted all of about ninety seconds.

“No,” Jake said forcefully, whipping around to face her. “You do not get to turn this around on me. You are one who wandered off, ignoring both our entire training exercise and a direct order from another trainee. You are the reason we are lost in the first place. You, Rose Nymphadora Weasley, are at fault here. Not. Me.” Jake finished, walking another ten feet or so. Sure, he should have checked the batteries himself. But there was no reason to have needed a backup to a device that they weren’t supposed to be using in the first place, that was designated for emergencies where a trainee and their CO got separated from the group.

Because apparently, if you’re Rose Weasley, having a cigarette in the middle of an exercise constitutes an emergency. Jake stopped again. “And another thing.” Oh no, this was not going to be good. He could feel every single little annoyance that had built up over the past few weeks bubbling up inside of him, threatening to burst out. “I am so fucking tired of your entitled, hypocritical, self-righteousness.” Yep, there he went. “You go on and on about how you want to be recognized for your own merit, not for your parents. Which yeah, I get it, parental legacies stuck. Good for you to make it on your own. Except you don’t. Because you seem pretty keen to use and abuse any special treatment you might be afforded. If you were any other trainee, you’d have been put on probation weeks ago for your attitude and blatant disrespect for rules, other trainees, commanding officers—hell, basically the entire training program. But you weren’t, because no one wanted to be the one to break it to Ron Weasley that his daughter wasn’t perfect, and was, in fact, a gigantic pain in all of our asses.”

But it wasn’t his fault, really, and she shouldn’t be taking it out on him. Ron Weasley wasn’t a man of reason, and neither was she. Now, though, her career was at stake. A sex scandal between her and her boss could lead to bad roads. It could cost her her chances at ever being Head of the Auror Department. “This could be really, really bad.” Suddenly she was exhausted. The day crashed down on her all at once–the reality of everything. She pulled her ring from it’s position under her shirt and slid it off the chain and on her her finger. 

“I can’t ask to be transferred, that would raise suspicion. Being near you and not being able to even…speak to you normally is going to drive me insane. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to see you but not see you.” A pained expression crossed her face, making her look angry and constipated at the same time. She lit a cigarette, deciding that they had broken the rules enough in one day to break a few more, which was quite unlike her. 

Rose Weasley had previously thought she had encountered the Worst Day Ever. Honestly, she’d had her fair share of “bad days.” Or so she had thought.

Because that day, when she got to work two hours early (so she could see Jake) he had looked like he’d seen a ghost. The words “I’m to be your C.O.” fell from his mouth like rocks. She had stood there frozen, unsure of what the fuck to say until she had burst into frantic, uncontrollable laughter. Because hell, life had a good sense of humor didn’t it? Even if it was dark, twisted, and fucked up.

And Merlin, was this ever fucked up.

There they stood, now–a couple hours later–in front of her father who had a proud grin on his face. She was doing her absolute best to stay eleven and a half feet away from Jake at all times, and every time he spoke to her she forced herself to snap at him. Ron was of course, oblivious to the whole thing. He laughed it off as “nerves” and asked her not to hex his best trainer.

It was only later, when they were up in his office that she allowed herself to fully come to terms with the situation. And it was some situation, wasn’t it?

Not the point. No, the point was that Jake had been promoted. Which is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. In fact, most people would put promotions firmly in the “good” category. Jake would have, too, if it weren’t that the promotion he had been given was to a junior officer in the Training Division. Actually, that’s not quite fair. He was actually quite thrilled about the job itself. It was the fact that one of his sixteen incoming students was his fianceé.

Ron had hand delivered the news in person, actually, just that morning. Of course. So Jake hadn’t even been able to panic in private like he’d have preferred. No, he’d had to grin and say “thank you, sir, I really appreciate, it sir. Sir.” Sure, no amount of arse-kissing was going to help when the truth came out, but Jake wasn’t going to give Ron any reason to dislike him. 

Well. Besides the obvious.

So after a day of ignoring Rose without actually ignoring her (the shit storm that was their personal lives was no excuse for shoddy teaching), Jake was exhausted. He’d gone back to his office, shut the door, conjured a drink, and waited for the inevitable visit from Rose.