Coffee's b-day fic

[rurounihime]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COFFEEJUNKII!!!!!

Title: The Arrangement
Author: rurounihime
Pairing: H/D
Rating: R
Summary: It's worked for years. Why change it now?
Disclaimer: The boys are not mine. I do not pimp them out for money. Honest.

A/N: Written for the lovely and talented coffeejunkii. She should be on everyone's f-list. I wuv her.

Also posted on AO3 and skyehawke.

...

The Arrangement


The sun slanted through the window in long stripes over the floor when Harry finally got out of the bed. He stood and rolled his neck, smiling widely. “Well. I certainly consider that time well spent.”

A snort. “As well you should. If I’d known we had a time limit, I wouldn’t have asked you over.”

Harry grinned, shaking his head. He reached for his trousers. “Bloody knew I had to go back to work. Pretending won’t get you my sympathy, you prick.”

“Excuse me for wanting to wallow through my afternoon like the slothful, spoiled fop that I am. Most people do, you know. Especially after something that good. Fuck. That settles it. I don’t think I’m going to move till tomorrow morning.”

Harry buckled his belt. He could still feel the sweat beading along his chest and shoulders. Bloody hell. Good was an understatement. But then, there wasn’t a time when it hadn’t been. “Hmm.”

Draco sat back against the headboard, long, naked legs half draped in his bed sheet, looking utterly comfortable and twice as lazy. “What, Harry?”

Harry turned a smirk over his shoulder and studied the arched ceiling. “I like this flat, you know.” He stretched his arms overhead, feeling the delicious popping in his back. He frowned thoughtfully. “This isn’t the same one you had before, is it?”

A soft sound, like a tsk, came from the bed behind him. “No.”

Harry glanced at Draco out of one eye. “It’s hard to keep track; you’ve moved so much.”

He did not miss the way Draco’s chin dropped, or the tiny clench of the fingers of his right hand. The blond began to untangle himself from the sheets, and Harry didn’t miss the forced nonchalance in every movement either. “I thought for sure you’d remember the kitchen from the last one, Harry. At least.”

Harry stole back across the room as Draco stood, and slipped his arms firmly around his middle. Draco jumped infinitesimally and Harry rested his chin on his shoulder. “Now. How could I possibly forget the divet in that counter?” he purred into his ear.

A sigh went through Draco’s body. Fingers squeezed Harry’s arm. Harry turned his head and breathed in the scent of sweat and old cologne from Draco’s throat.

“You were kinky enough to put it there,” the other man bantered lightly. “Had to give them my bloody deposit.”

“Hmm. And how shall I pay you back for that?”

Draco allowed the soft tonguing along the arch of his neck for a few seconds, and then rolled his head back with a sigh. “That’ll get you nothing, Potter.”

“It’ll be a first, then,” Harry chuckled. Draco let out a melodramatic huff and bent to grab his boxers from the floor, craftily evading Harry’s embrace.

“Excuse me. I’d like to get some comfortable clothing on so I can get back into bed and sleep my life away, thank you.”

Harry released him and made for his shirt where it had been tossed over a chair. He heard the soft whuff of the mattress as Draco fell back onto it, and the equally contented murmur that followed. Harry slid one arm into a sleeve and then had to work at turning the other outside-in again. “Still refuse to sleep starkers, hm? Someone’s going to have to train you at that.”

Draco settled himself back against the headboard and shot a pained glare at him. “Just because you’re an aberration doesn’t mean we all have to be.”

“But it’s so precious, Draco,” Harry simpered. “I remember that time in Perth. Completely smashed; you could barely keep your eyes open. But you still managed to crawl out of bed and find your shorts in the… in the loo, wasn’t it?”

Draco flipped him two fingers, not bothering to open his eyes. “Go back to work, golden boy. I’ve no time for you just now.”

Harry shrugged, grinning. “Fine, wear them. I’ll just snap you awake by the waistband when I come back tonight.”

A small smile played about the blond’s lips. He was already drifting; his face had slipped into the rare, open expression Harry had first become addicted to seven years ago. He doubted Draco even knew when he was making it. So much the better.

“I’ll just leave the wards down, shall I?” Draco murmured.

“Sounds like a plan.” Harry paused, holding his socks in one hand. He listened to the steady, slowing breathing of the man in the bed. The room was almost too warm, and smelled sweetly of sweat and old daylight. Then there was that teasing, delicate scent of Draco’s wash detergent. Like sandalwood.

He knelt at the side of the bed, smiling faintly. Draco’s eyelids fluttered in some half-dream, and Harry inched his hand over the crumpled duvet until it rested just centimeters from Draco’s. “Would you hex me if I told you I dreamt of this?” he asked softly, more to himself than to his companion.

Draco did not twitch, but his voice came, quite a bit more clearly than Harry had expected. “No, but I’d hope you had a more exciting social life.”

Harry laughed, a bit belatedly. “Alas, I don’t. Afraid I’m rather useless nowadays. All work and no play, as they say.” He squeezed Draco’s fingers playfully. Draco cracked one sleepy eye.

“My gods, Harry, what are you still doing here? Weasel One will probably send your late arse off to Egypt again, and then I’ll just have to get up and set my wards. Prick.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Harry said loftily. “Might just stay here. You have ginger digestives in your cabinet, right?”

“Twat. Only want me for my biscuits. Oh, horrors, that’s why you come back so often. And here I was, thinking it was the sex.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll restock your fridge on Monday before I head back.”

“Why, thank you. Such a thoughtful twat.”

Harry smirked at him. “Yes. I am rather thoughtful, aren’t I?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “At least I get a fantastically thorough fucking for every loaf of bread you devour. Makes up for lost sleep.”

“Alright, I get the hint, princess. I’m going. And don’t sleep for a thousand years. I intend to eat one of those loaves tonight after we’re done with all that fantastically thorough nonsense.”

“Well. Hurry back, darling,” Draco drawled, waving one hand absently in Harry’s direction.

Harry smiled and stood, picking up his socks once more. He let his gaze travel over Draco’s slender, still-damp torso, over the dips just above his boxers, down to the five toes peeking out from beneath the carelessly tossed sheet. “Might just be easier if I lived here, you know. Then I could buy all your food with purpose.”

“And with my money, I suppose,” Draco snorted. “I should just start an account at Gringott’s for Potter’s Post-Shag Starvation. Be easier for everyone involved.”

“Be easier still if I really did live here,” Harry responded idly, then wondered when the shock of what he’d just said would hit him.

Draco’s eyes opened slowly. The blond glanced at him once, then really looked. The five toes sticking out from under the sheet curled slightly. Draco’s brow creased and he looked away.

“We tried that, Harry,” he muttered. “It didn’t work.”

“No.” Harry sat down on the bed carefully and squeezed Draco’s hand. “We tried it and broke it off because we were each headed somewhere different. But if you’ll notice, we keep coming back to each other.”

Draco didn’t respond. But his breathing had grown more rapid. Harry could feel his heartbeat thudding through his fingertips.

“It’s convenient is all,” Draco said at last. His shoulders gave a twitch as he spoke, and he looked up at Harry with one eyebrow cocked. “You’re in town often enough.”

“And you’ve got very select lunch hours, haven’t you?” Harry murmured. Draco’s gaze caught his for a second, and then flicked away. He reached up and ruffled a hand through disparate blond locks. Harry watched, mesmerized. “Convenient and coincidental, yeah?”

Draco snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, Harry. Or me. It’s a dull routine.”

“We have a routine, then?”

Draco rolled his eyes at him with the painstaking grace of the nobility he’d been born into. Only Draco Malfoy could make the image work in this day and age. “Oh, for Godric’s sake. You of all people know we do. It’s been rather diverting till now, I must say. I’m forced to be relaxed all day at work because there’s absolutely no possible way to hoard any stress with the sheer amount of climaxing I do during weeks such as this. Not only that, but the shagging I get is at the hands of a stunning piece of heroic eye-candy, and not some ridiculous mouse of a closeted gay stock-boy, which is more than I can say for… well, any of my coworkers.” He sat forward, lips twisting into a smirk. “And I like to think I do assist you in working out the kinks you build up fumbling with curses in dark, dank holes all over the world. It’s a delightful exchange, and I’m more than willing to provide my half of it. You provide yours, and everyone goes home happy at the end of the weekend.”

Harry looked down at Draco’s hand, so close to his. “Yes, but then, you’re already at home.”

Draco heaved an exasperated sigh. “And what exactly are you saying, Potter? The arrangement falling short of your expectations? Because it’s fulfilled mine for a good three years, you know.”

Harry sat up. “Four, for me,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll be counting this year, actually. Fulfillment’s… a loaded word.”

“Well, do be bold and tell me if I’m not quite vigorous enough with my technique, Potter. I’d hate to think you’d become disenchanted with my abilities. I suppose you’d always be up for more practice, at any rate.”

“No,” Harry said softly. He couldn’t… quite… bring himself to take his eyes from Draco. “Still enchanted, I assure you.”

Draco’s smirk widened into a careless grin, and Harry grabbed his hand at last, unable to stand the mirthless eyes above that smile. “Very enchanted.”

Draco’s grin slipped. His eyes darted, and the tip of his tongue came out to wet his lips. It was a nervousness Harry remembered as if he’d seen it only yesterday. But it had not been his to see for some time. Youthful. Something clenched in relief inside him, that Draco’s five years of self-detachment had not managed to take that innocence from him.

“You can’t be serious, Harry,” he said in a low, flat voice.

“Draco, I’m afraid that at least one thing has not changed, and that is that you are the only thing I am ever truly serious about.”

Draco stared at him. His eyes hooded and he sank back against the headboard. “I don’t think I want to go down this road again right now.” His words, as callous as they were, lost their edge in the vulnerability slipping up underneath. Hesitation behind it, however slight. Harry waited, and Draco straightened his shoulders as if shedding a second skin. “We have… What we have, Harry, it’s something that works. For both of us. We don’t get in each other’s way like we used to.”

Harry considered. “Something that works… and something that fulfills are two very different things, Draco. We made a choice five years ago, and it was the right one. Then. It fulfilled me, and I know it fulfilled you.” Draco’s gaze dropped from his, and then rose again. Harry went on. “But this isn’t then. This is now.”

The blond looked away with another sigh. “Harry, I don’t want to get in your way now, either. I’m a potions licenser. You’re a curse breaker. You have to go where the curses are. It’s what you wanted.”

Harry traced the fine line of Draco’s profile with his eyes. Striking. Any artist would consider him beyond worthy. But Harry knew those arches, those curves and sweeps of pale skin, better than any artist could. He moved closer, crawling across the bed until Draco was forced to draw his legs up to make room.

“Yes. But I also want you. No less than I want to break curses, and no less than I wanted you seven years ago.” He spread his arms and smiled up at the ceiling. “Gods, Draco, I finally… finally know what I want. And I know it because I can see myself being perfectly happy. Just over… the horizon.”

Draco’s momentary hesitation was enough to dampen the lofty grin he eventually responded with. He cocked an eyebrow at Harry over the tops of his knees. “Are you suggesting that I haven’t made you perfectly happy these weekends? Because you sounded excruciatingly happy not ten minutes ago. Actually, I can’t be sure; you were positively incoherent at the time.”

Harry exhaled through his nose and crept closer. “Oh, I was excruciatingly happy. I’ve no complaints.” He reached up and settled his hands on Draco’s knees. The other man had gone very still. His pupils were dilated and he was staring straight at Harry. “But I can’t say I was fulfilled. Draco, because I can’t lie to you.”

He nudged Draco’s knees apart and moved into the space between, sliding his hands down the outsides of his thighs. He reached the lower hem of Draco’s boxers and edged past it, grasping lightly at the firm muscle there. Draco’s flesh rippled into goosebumps under his fingers.

“I haven’t just had an epiphany, Draco, I can assure you,” Harry murmured, inching his hands higher. “I’ve thought about this for some months now. Almost mentioned it once or twice. But there were… other things… going on…” He stroked in tiny, steady circles with both thumbs, just along the backs of Draco’s thighs. The blond inhaled sharply and Harry dipped his head to nuzzle at the base of that smooth, creamy throat. This was truly one of his strengths, and if Draco would acknowledge no other, then he would have to remind him.

“But I just can’t keep silent about it any longer.” Harry paused to breathe, tasting Draco’s scent on his tongue. “I want you—I want us, again. And I think you do as well.”

Draco tensed, all ten of his toes curling. He gripped Harry’s left hand where it skated against his bare thigh, but did not make an effort to stop its slow slide up and down. “Mmm—Damn you. Resourceful bastard…”

“I have to be, with you,” Harry murmured. “Otherwise I wouldn’t survive one night…”

He squeezed the soft skin just above Draco’s leg and felt the other man roll his hips slightly toward him. Traced that glorious curved throat with his other hand. Draco let out a soft sound and began to edge backward. His clutching gained more purpose and he gently pushed Harry away. “That’s… very nice… mm, Harry. But I think I prefer a clear head at the moment.”

“And why’s that?”

Draco’s hands tightened around Harry’s, finally forcing them to a stop. His eyes were a clear, steady grey. “Because I’m liable to agree to anything under your ministrations. Even…” he took a slow breath, “things I shouldn’t agree to.”

Harry straightened, studying his companion carefully. “Are you saying… you shouldn’t want it? Or that you don’t want it?”

The words were difficult to voice. It was the question, after all, come perhaps a little too soon, for all his preparation. Harry met Draco’s gaze steadily, but could read nothing more than careful concealment there. At last Draco looked away, glancing about the room as if getting his bearings.

“I’d like to know the difference between the two,” he answered, with cautious aplomb. He looked at Harry again sharply. “Thus. The need for clear-headedness.”

Harry smiled wistfully. “You can’t be clearheaded when it comes to me, Draco. Part of the problem, if I remember.”

Draco gave him a halfhearted glare. “There was a time I would have thrown you out for a lie like that.”

Harry snorted and touched Draco’s nose with the tip of his thumb. “Yeah. Maybe back when it was a lie.”

Draco let out a huff and finally removed Harry’s other hand from his hip completely. Harry sat back, suppressing a shiver at the loss of contact. Draco drew his knees up close to his chest, slightly parted. A shield, but not insurmountable. The meaning was clear to Harry.

“You never answered my question,” he pressed gently.

Awareness stole over Draco’s face. His lips thinned… eyes narrowed. Harry let himself be studied.

“Maybe I don’t have an answer.”

Harry shook his head. “You have one. I can see it.”

Draco looked down at his hands where they rested against his thighs. “And what if I don’t want it, Harry?” he asked quietly.

The silence shifted in heavy waves. Harry took a moment to gather himself. “Then that’s what I need to hear,” he answered softly. Steadily. He reached and squeezed Draco’s hand briefly before drawing away again.

Draco exhaled and shut his eyes. He shook his head. “That easy, is it? I just say the words—”

“And I let it go,” Harry finished. “I don’t ask again.”

Draco raised his head, annoyance twisting his features. “And then what? Our arrangement still stands? Or you play the martyr and disappear?”

Harry sighed, leaning back. “Come off it, Draco. There are no martyrs here.”

The other man rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, fuck. And the afternoon started out so well.”

Harry cocked his head, but said nothing.

Draco pursed his lips at him. “What? Can’t I just have an afternoon of lazy, unassuming, messy sex once in a while? This was never going to be some unorthodox form of commitment, Potter. You knew that.”

“So did you,” Harry countered. Draco’s eyebrows shot up. His lip curled.

“Yes. I did. And I had no intention of changing that. It works, you said it yourself. And there’s no need to pretend it doesn’t, Harry, so don’t. We made a good situation out of a bad one. But that’s all it is. Don’t start tacking rules onto it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Harry said, lifting his chin. He squinted at Draco. “The question was about something totally different, and you know it.”

Draco met his gaze for so long Harry nearly forgot what had been said. Then the blond dropped his eyes. “Maybe it’s too different, Harry. It’s a huge change. Not one I’m sure either of us can handle.”

“Yes, it is huge.”

“Harry…” Draco’s hands clenched. When he looked up again, his face seemed older. Wearier. “Harry, you do know you’re not the only person I’ve been sleeping with. Right?”

Harry nodded. Drew a breath against the pang of those words. “Yes. And the reverse is true.”

Something dark flashed through Draco’s eyes before he could stop it. His face tightened back into stillness. Harry reached out again and touched Draco’s fingers gently. “No rules, Draco. I have always been well aware of that.”

The serenity returned haltingly to Draco’s body. “I know.” He sighed. “It’s a good system, Harry. I don’t think I want it to change.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment. He raised his hand and brushed fingers through Draco’s hair, letting the soft, sweaty bangs fall back into place. “But it’s bothering you.”

Draco pulled his head away and looked at Harry frankly. “Something is always bothering me, Harry. The trials of being me. Of living. Let it go.”

“You used to tell me what was bothering you,” Harry murmured. “You still can, you know.”

Draco’s knees came together and he straightened, drawing even further away. “No, Harry, sometimes I can’t. Or rather, I don’t want to. What I used to do, what we used to—” He waved a hand through the air and Harry saw that it was shaking. “It just doesn’t apply anymore. It’s… neither here nor there. It’s not about what I want anymore, Harry, this is my life. My life. My cares, my worries. It doesn’t involve anyone else anymore.”

But the last sentence held sadness, and Harry leaned forward. “It does involve you, though, Draco. What you want and… and need. Don’t throw away the importance of that.”

Draco’s eyes flashed. “Don’t you think it’s a little more complicated than that now, Harry? That more goes into it than who I want to fuck, or who makes me feel good, or who… who I…” He shook his head, exhaling softly. “I can’t just… Harry, it can’t be about desire anymore.”

“Draco.” Harry fixed him with a piercing stare. “I asked what you wanted.”

“What I want?” Draco’s voice broke and he smiled a sharp, frantic smile. He looked up at the ceiling and Harry had the feeling he was trying desperately not to laugh. “Merlin, Harry, get off your high horse. We’re not kids anymore, trying for something that was doomed to fail. No, it was, Potter. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better for everyone!” Draco glanced at him and his face softened into something wounded, something that had been locked away for a long time. His hand moved restlessly, then stilled. “It was nice—wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful, I won’t ever deny that. But it’s over. Harry, it failed, and life went on.”

Harry reached where Draco wouldn’t – couldn’t, perhaps – and stroked those pale, elegant fingers. They not only knew him, truly and completely, they understood him as well, they had studied him. Pleased him. Opened him wide from skin to soul and never once dropped him. “And if it were something you wanted?”

Draco looked away, shaking his head. Back and forth. “Even if it is something I want, Harry—No. No, it, that doesn’t matter enough anymore. It only goes so far—” He stopped. Grimaced. “I have to do what will help me. There’s a difference—”

“Draco.” Harry took his shoulders firmly, forcing Draco’s eyes to his. “Just… tell me what’s wrong.” Draco’s mouth opened indignantly, but Harry squeezed his shoulders. “No, tell me the truth. Not your reasoning, not your… Draco, we used to be able to talk about anything. When did we reach the point where we couldn’t anymore?”

Draco looked at him mutely and Harry sighed, suddenly at a loss. “If that’s where this arrangement has…I never wanted to lose that, do you understand? If we’ve lost the ability to talk to each other like we—” He had to fight for his composure. “I just want to know what you want. What you want, Draco, gods, not the rationale behind why you won’t take it.”

“Harry, you have to understand that rationale,” Draco countered hotly. “I can’t just… ‘take it’ anymore. I won’t. It’s not going to help me, and I will not set myself up for a fall!”

“It’s me,” Harry hissed, and Draco stilled, staring at him. “Look at me, look me in the eye, and tell me what you want.”

“That’s not import—”

“It’s important to me, Draco, aren’t you listening? I don’t care if it’s not something I’ll want to hear. I care about the truth. Stop beating around the bush and tell me the truth!”

Draco’s shoulders rose and fell in weak, barely sustained breaths. “The truth might not be the best thing for me in this case, Harry.”

Harry searched the other man’s face, the deep lines marring his brow, the strain about his mouth. He brushed his fingers over Draco’s cheek. “Maybe you think that I haven’t been telling the absolute truth with you, then,” he said quietly.

A haunted look crossed Draco’s face. His eyes widened, pupils dilating, and Harry knew that it had not even occurred to Draco to consider that. He ran his thumb over Draco’s chin, knowing he’d hit a mark, seeing both shame and accusation in those familiar stormcloud irises. And… fear. It was not meant to surface, but it had. The truth of it, at last.

“Draco, this is not some whim of mine. Some excuse to revisit our glory days. This is my truth, here, now, and I have questioned it often enough to tear it to shreds many times over. I’ve given it to you, all of it, even if you aren’t sure I have, and I just want to ask you – beg you – to give me the same courtesy. No matter what your answer is. You give it into my care and I will lock it away where you’ll never have to see it again. I won’t let it hurt you. I swear it. Just… please. Please trust me with it.”

Draco’s face shuddered. His shoulders were trembling so, so slightly. Harry stroked up and down his arms, already seeing the threads there, the pain of the unfinished life their departure had interrupted, the quiet yearning and the sacrifices made to stop hurting. To let it go. To move on. The agony and confusion of being wrenched back – for a stark instant, Harry hated himself – and the slow resignation.

…trust?

At last Draco shivered. “First, I need you to know that I can’t… do this. Again. If that’s what it comes to. I won’t go through what we… what…”

Harry nodded and Draco fell silent. Looked at him for an interminable, searing moment. Then…

“I don’t want… anyone else. I don’t want to be with anyone else, I don’t want to feel anyone else inside me, and if I thought for an instant…” Draco took a deep breath. “…that you wanted the same…”

Harry stroked his fingers through Draco’s hair and found himself speaking, very quietly. “I thought maybe you’d found someone. Earlier, over breakfast, when you nearly shrugged me off. You’d found someone else and were telling me to stop. And I would. Draco, I wouldn’t do this anymore, if I thought you were happy, I’d—” He grimaced before he could stop himself. “I’d let it go.”

Draco let out a soft, sad laugh. “Gods. Harry, how do we let ourselves keep missing each other like this?”

“Draco…” Harry edged closer, until the heat of Draco’s side was beating into his own through his shirt. “Are we really missing each other this time?”

Draco’s breath caught, the stuttering hiss of lost words. Harry leaned into the silence, spoke into it, nudging his nose gently against Draco’s. “I don’t want to miss you. I’ve missed enough as it is. And I don’t… don’t think we are missing here. And gods, Draco, I have missed people, trust me. But I know how I felt when… During those months. When you were with that bloke from Yorkshire. Hell, I’ve been missing everyone I ever considered dating for the last five years. And I know now that no matter what you say today, I will keep missing people for the rest of my life. I might settle down with one of them, but I don’t want to just settle down. I want to breathe and feel and taste that person, and I want that person to be you. With all my heart, Draco, I want you in my veins, and I want to ache with the knowledge that I will go home each night and find you there.”

Draco’s breathing had become ragged, a quick pull and sigh. When he finally met Harry’s eyes, his own were glittering with moisture.

“I want you,” Draco rasped, the sudden desperation making Harry’s heart skip. “I want you, and not this week-by-week tryst, during times when we’re both single and I don’t feel guilty for thinking your name while I’m in someone else’s bed. I don’t want to share you with any other person, ever. Gods, Harry—”

“Come here,” Harry choked out, just before he pulled Draco to him, so hard their teeth clacked, and then Draco was gasping into his mouth, and kissing him as if he wanted to climb inside him, struggling to situate their bodies, but it was never close enough, not even with Draco wrapped around him, straddling his lap, hands tangled in his hair, and pressing full-bodied against him. Harry curled his hand tightly through the fine blond hair and leaned into Draco, feeling the soft hitch of his breath as he did, tilting his head… Draco’s tongue was warm and familiar and so, so welcome in his mouth, the touch of his lips the rekindling of some long-remembered dream, and Harry knew this body better than he knew his own, even. Knew it, and knew exactly what he could do with it, to it, what it could do to him. The only true weakness he had ever known he had, and Draco was right here, offering to be his weakness for the rest of his life, if only he would agree to be that vulnerable again.

And Harry had already agreed wholeheartedly.

Draco gave a great shiver in his arms. Harry rubbed one hand soothingly over his lover's back as he waited for it to pass. When it didn't, when it became clear that Draco was... trembling, Harry tightened his hold, gathering Draco to him gently and steadily, carding his fingers through that blond hair. Experiencing Draco all over again: the hot flush of skin that Harry could never really explain to himself, how it was that Draco held so much heat and did not burn himself apart, the way his throat smelled and his mouth tasted, the silk and sinew of the hands clutching at his shoulders. Draco tried to caress him, to brush one hand over his cheek, but that hand shook so badly that Harry took it in his own, raised it to his mouth and pressed his lips to Draco's knuckles. Kissed each one in turn. Draco clung to him, heated exhalations skating over Harry's throat, and rode out his tremors in silence. Harry let him, wishing for all the world that he could pass some of his strength, his certainty, into the slender body in his arms. Draco's fingers wove with his and tightened almost painfully.

When at last the shivers receded, Draco leaned back. His lips slipped over Harry's cheek as they parted, and Harry was suddenly aware of the nakedness of the man he held. Not the bare skin, but the bared... everything. He sought Draco's gaze, needing to see that the other man understood, and when Draco finally lifted his eyes to Harry's, he saw that certainty and strength were not what his lover was lacking. Harry's breath seized in his chest at the depth of those eyes, the absence of walls he had not even known were there. It was all gone, all of it. And Harry was caught in it instead.

Draco shifted his weight slowly, eyes darting down under drooping lashes, and met Harry's mouth again in a tender kiss. It held nothing of the frenzy from before. Just recognition. Draco teased his lip with the tip of his tongue and Harry sank into the tentative touch and deepened it. Expanded it. Until Draco's body had begun to flush once more.

Reluctantly, Harry eased away. Draco's head dropped against his chest. His shoulders rose and fell. Harry reached and found Draco's hand again, bringing it up between their bodies. "Are you alright?"

"You know I'm not," Draco whispered. He shifted even closer, arms coming up to cradle Harry's shoulders. One long, pale leg was still curled around his waist, and Draco sighed luxuriantly. "Nor do I wish to be."

"Masochist."

"When the pain is this good..." Draco trailed off. Harry took the moment to retrace the lines and arcs of his lover’s back, learning the familiar expanse all over again.

"I have to go," he whispered, almost too softly to hear. Maybe he didn't want it to be heard. Maybe the excuse was all he needed to remain here, wrapped up in bed sheets and sunlight and Draco: he'd tried to go, and Draco had not heard him.

But the other man moved, and Harry had to weather the full weight of disconnection for the first time in years. Draco pulled back and looked at him mutely for so long that Harry had to touch him. “Draco. Just work. I promise.”

Draco’s mouth opened and closed silently. His eyes flickered down, and then he ran both his hands through Harry’s hair, layering the wayward strands back into place. "Well. Someone's got to fund this fool's errand."

Harry smiled and got an answering smirk in return. His hands resisted the loss of contact, however, and in the end, he lowered Draco all the way back to his sprawl against the headboard. Draco's face was open, yet still shyly watchful. Harry pressed a lingering kiss to his mouth, and it very nearly turned into something else, far more entangling and time consuming, before he managed to pull himself away and get to his feet.

Draco watched him straighten his shirt. He raised one slender finger, and Harry zeroed in on the wrinkle in his left trouser leg and slapped it smooth again. Draco's mouth curved faintly.

"Rest up, you," Harry said, and the smile bloomed into an easy leer.

"You just worry about yourself, Potter.”

Harry chuckled and pulled his socks and shoes onto his feet at last. Grabbed his coat and was heading for the door when Draco's voice stopped him.

"Harry."

He turned, and was momentarily startled. All trace of amusement had slipped from Draco's face, and his expression had somehow hollowed, curved inward. The blond licked his lips. His eyes roved over Harry a little too quickly. "Are we..." He gestured with one hand. "How are we?"

Harry smiled slowly. He decided to drink his fill of the image before him and saw by the flicker in Draco's eyes that he felt it as well. "Better than we've ever been. Alright?"

Draco's eyes shed their cowl at last. "Alright."

"Sweet dreams."

Harry was just about to pass through the door when Draco spoke. "I'll leave the wards down for you."

And I certainly won't be late, Harry thought.

~fin~


Read the sequel: An Evening in August

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Thank you for reading!