Chapter Text
2 years later
"Is that all the boxes?" Sage yelled from the kitchen when she heard the front door kicked shut. They'd been leaving it open while they lugged the absurd amount of boxes that they had up the stairs to their new apartment; she was hoping that the closed door symbolized the end of the sweaty, finger-cramping, work.
"Yep," Fred said as he walked into the kitchen, smiling when he saw her sitting on the countertop drinking water out of the first mug that she could find on the top of one of the boxes that sat on top of one of the mountains. He moved to stand in between her legs as she opened them for him, placing his hands on her thighs and leaning in to give her a quick kiss on the lips. "We're all done."
She smiled and nudged him out of the way with her knee so that she could hop off of the counter and place her mug in the sink before moving outside of the kitchen to the living room, just looking at their apartment. "Can you believe that this is all ours?" she asked without turning around to make sure that Fred had followed her.
"Honestly? No," Fred said, now standing next to her. "I can't believe any of this. You're out of Hogwarts and have a real job, I'm not living with my brother anymore. We're like, proper adults now."
Sage giggled. "I wouldn't go that far."
Fred laughed. "You're right."
They stood in silence for a moment and just admired their new home, no matter how bare and undecorated it was at the moment. Sage couldn't believe that it was all theirs. Theirs. Together. It was absolutely, positively, insane.
When she'd graduated Hogwarts, it wasn't really even a discussion that she'd be living with Fred. They never even talked about it really, they just came to each other with different apartment listings and that was that.
Luna and George were still together - to absolutely no one's surprise - and she and George had also been planning on moving in together after would graduate a year later. They all decided that Fred would move out and find a new place with Sage, somewhere closer to where Sage worked as an intern for the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures at the Ministry of Magic, and that George would just live alone for a year until Luna would join him.
The place they chose was perfect, really. It was close enough to the Ministry of Magic that Sage could walk to work if she wanted and it had a fireplace that had access to the Floo Network so that Fred could get to work every day.
Sage hadn't originally thought that they'd move very far, she hadn't really wanted to either. She had expected that she'd need to find a way to get to work every day once she got the internship, whether by Floo or apparition. She hadn't thought that Fred would ever want to move too far away from his family, let alone London.
It'd been a big topic of conversation for a while, even causing a few fights between the couple, until they decided on making the big move. Sage had thought that Fred had suggested moving only so that she could be closer to work and had felt horrible for making him move his entire life just for her, no matter how many times he told her that he actually wanted to try living in a big city for a while and wanted to get out of their small town. Fred had thought that Sage was declining his suggestion just so that they could be near his family and felt horrible that she would hold herself back just for him, no matter how many times she told him that she actually liked the quiet life and wasn't quite sure about living in the big city.
They learned to trust what one another said after that, not make up their own opinions on what the other wanted.
That was how most of their fights went, no matter how few they were. It was always out of their love for the other when they did rarely bicker, whether it was about what kind of dog they'd get, where they were thinking of going for the holidays, or what they were having for dinner that night. It was always Sage fighting for what Fred wanted and vise versa. It was sort of an atypical way for a couple to fight.
Sage figured that if they were going to fight, those were probably the best things to fight about - making the other happy.
"I need to pee. Where's the toilet paper?" Sage asked, breaking the silence.
Fred snorted out a laugh and walked over to one of the boxes by the door and grabbed a roll, tossing it to Sage.
"Thanks," she said with a smile and left the room.
After she'd gone to the bathroom and fiddled with the finicky toilet paper holder before she could get it back in place with the roll on it, she walked back into the living room to see that Fred had dug out the record player.
"What's this?" she asked through a laugh right as he got the music going.
Fred turned around and held out a hand. "I thought we could have a first dance in our new apartment, roomie."
Sage giggled and took his hand, letting him spin her once before he pulled her into him. She smiled up at him, looped her arms up around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss, holding her lips there for a moment before pulling away with an obnoxious 'smack'.
"Mmm, one more," Fred said and bent down to kiss her again, a bit deeper this time.
She giggled into his lips but let him kiss her for as long as he wanted, which turned out to only be a few more seconds before he pulled away and rested his chin on the top of her head.
She let out a little laugh again and rested her cheek on his chest as they swayed to the music, looking out the window to the city night as she did.
"I never thought I'd be here," Fred mumbled after a minute.
Sage pulled her head off of his chest and looked up at him. "What, living alone or in London?".
He smiled down at her fondly. "Living with you."
She beamed up at him and stood on her tiptoes to give him another kiss. She pecked him once, said, "I love you," and then gave him another peck.
He smiled down at her, a look in his eyes that she never wanted him to stop giving her.
She looked back up at him with just as much love in her eyes, but broke the silence to say, "You think we should start unpacking?".
They both were able to stay quiet for a total of three seconds before they burst out laughing. "Yeah, right," he said, still laughing a bit. "We have a mattress, that's all we need, right?" he asked with a mischievous look in his eye and pulled away from her to bend down to lift Sage, hauling her over his shoulder.
"Fred!" she squealed and tried to jump down.
He carried her over to where their queen mattress was laying on the hardwood floor, throwing her down onto it. He looked down at her like he was about to start tickling her, so she reached her legs up to push him away. He caught her foot in his strong grip before she could though, pushing it to the side so that he could lean down to start tickling her, his fingers attacking all up and down her sides.
"Fred! Stop!" she said through giggles as she continued to try to push him off of her. She was unsuccessful, but luckily he gave in at some point and moved to flop down on the bed next to her, him panting from tickling her and her panting from laughing so much.
"We don't have any food here, so it's either take out or going out to dinner," Sage said after a moment.
Fred hummed and rolled over to lay mostly on top of her, resting his chin on her chest. "Or... I could just eat you," he said and quickly started attacking her in kisses this time, lifting her shirt to get all over her chest and stomach as she tried to push his head off of her through giggles, finally stopping after he blew a raspberry into her bellybutton.
"You have too much energy today," she said once she caught her breath.
"Hmm," he hummed again and moved to rest his chin on her chest again. "I'm just excited to be all moved in."
"Me too," Sage said with a smile and tangled her hand in Fred's hair. "Chinese?".
"Oooh, yeah," Fred said and nodded, his chin pressing into the skin on Sage's chest. "Let's do that. I'll owl in an order right now." He stood up and walked towards the kitchen, humming a song as he went.
Sage stayed laying on her back for a minute but got up once she got bored, moving to stand in front of the window that looked over the city. She'd never get bored looking at that. Their view was absolutely beautiful and made no sense for the price of the apartment, but she wasn't going to complain. Maybe their rent was a bit lower because the elevator didn't work and their lock was the faulty kind that could be broken into with a simple 'alohomora'.
The sky was dark, but the city was anything but. The buildings were brightly lit up where they stretched into the sky at different heights, taller buildings scattered around the shorter ones. They were high up enough that people looked small from their apartment, but not high enough that she couldn't tell what people were doing down on the streets. She'd never get bored looking out at it, not when there was so much going on down below.
She jolted in shock when she felt Fred wrap his arms around her from behind her. "Merlin, Fred. Always sneaking up on me."
"Sorry, love," he said through a laugh. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and rested his chin on her shoulder, looking down at the city with her. "It's so beautiful."
"Just like you," Sage said with her biggest, most charming smile.
"Heyyy, that's my line," Fred said with a pout.
The music was still playing softly in the background, filling the silence as they looked at the new view of where they'd hopefully be living for a while.
"You reckon we'll get a dog soon?" Fred asked.
Sage hummed. "Maybe after we get the place all set up and decorated, I'm not quite sure how long that's going to take.
Fred groaned. "Right, we actually have to decorate this place."
Sage chuckled. "We'll make it fun, I promise."
"I'm sure we will."
Fred started to dance with her to the music again, this time from behind. He just tightened his grip around her waist and swayed her with him, humming along to the song in her ear. Sage bent her head back to rest on his shoulder, still watching the city in front of them as they swayed.
She wasn't sure how long they danced, at least for a couple of songs, until he broke the silence.
"You know, I'm gonna propose to you one day."
Her eyebrows raised in shock. "Yeah?" she asked, turning to look at him. "Well, I'm gonna say yes."