The Art of Living - R. Black

eleven

TW: Smut

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Meredith Black

March 9th, 1996

I'm sitting in the living room going over plays for next week's match when Regulus gets home. There's a crack of apparition coming from the front yard, and I sent down my play book as I wait for him to come inside.

He was sent on a mission for the Order this morning, and it's early evening now.

The front door opened quickly and Regulus came inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

"Oh my god-," I quickly got up from the couch and rushed over to him. "What the hell happened?"

Regulus brushed me off, grabbing my hands before I could reach him. His lip is split and there's a bruise blooming on his left cheekbone.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I promise," He said, his eyes meeting mine.

"But your face-"

"-Is fine," Regulus insisted. "I got into a bit of a row with one of their new followers."

I tilted his chin up to get a better look at his face. As far as I could tell, he had no other injuries than his split lip and bruise.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Regulus ran his hand through my hair. "I'm okay," He said. "You should see the other guy though."

That made me smile a bit.

"Come on," I said, "Let's go fix your lip."

"Please do, I'm dying to kiss you," Regulus replied.

He trailed behind me as I walked through our bedroom, into the attached bathroom. I grabbed the stuff to clean his wound out from underneath the sink. I set my wand on the counter as Regulus leaned up against it.

I wet a washcloth with soap and water and began to clean out his wound. Over the years I've gotten pretty good at it. During the first war I had to clean and heal more wounds than I can count, then Atlas and Elio are always doing stupid stuff even after I tell them not to, and it always ends up with one of them having some sort of cut or scrape.

"So, what happened?" I asked.

"They didn't send any actual Death Eaters, just a few newer followers. And like we assumed, they started throwing curses as soon as they saw us."

I shook my head, "Bloody idiots."

"That's what I said," Regulus said, giving me a small smile.

I set the washcloth aside, grabbing my wand. "Episkey." Regulus's lip 'unsplit', and healed back together, leaving no scar.

"Can I kiss you now?" He asked, looking down at me.

I answered his question by bringing my lips to his. Regulus bowed his head to deepen the kiss, his hands gravitating to my waist.

I pulled away, cupping the side of Regulus's face. "I worry about you when you're gone," I whispered.

Regulus held my wrist and brought my hand over to press a kiss against the palm of my hand, then another one on my wrist.

"I know," He said, "I worry about you when you're gone."

My husband's hand dropped to my hair, and he ran his fingers through my hair. "Let me make it up to you," He said.

"Well, I was kind of busy working," I teased.

"Oh, were you?" Regulus said sarcastically.

"I was," I insisted.