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This series attacked me over the last two weeks. And then so did RL, so I am only now posting this. Um, suggestions please: What does one do when three fandoms are bombarding one all at once? *has fics in all three that are unfinished* Also, does anyone on my f-list actually read CSI slash?
Title: Inevitable
Author: me
Pairing: H/D
Rating: R (mostly for swear words)
Summary: Some things are just unavoidable. Part four of the Downpour series.
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine, as usual.
A/N: I'm sorry for this, guys. But they needed to go here. Thanks so much to Coffee for her invaluable feedback, and to Fire and Dracofiend for their wonderful jobs beta-ing. ^_^
Downpour ~ The Quality of Ice ~ Still Tender
ETA: mobi and epub versions of this series available for download here
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Inevitable
It was late again; the windows had darkened long ago, and Harry could feel the beginnings of a headache starting up. That and the ever-present feeling of dread knotting his stomach. Draco’s eyes were cool and hard as flint across the table.
“I haven’t even opened my mouth yet, Harry.”
Harry touched his temple and gazed back at his lover as steadily as he could. He didn’t need Draco to open his mouth. He already knew what kind of fight this would be, and he was already afraid of the potential fury of it. Draco’s face was a mask of nothingness, cold-edged. “We don’t need another couch, Draco,” he muttered.
“Of course not. You won’t even listen to my reasoning.”
Harry glared at the other man. It had been this way for the past week. Every night, almost. They weren’t just spats anymore, even if they always began as something trivial enough to qualify. The distinct difference in the timbre of Draco’s tone was frighteningly familiar, always there. Harry had the sneaking suspicion that Draco was trying to goad them into something huge, pressing slowly but steadily – almost methodically – from every angle over the last week.
A single week since visiting Yorkshire. Felt like longer.
“I have listened, and your reasoning doesn’t make sense,” Harry growled. “It hasn’t convinced me at any rate.”
Draco’s eyes glinted. He sat back. For a split second, Harry felt the presence of something else shivering through Draco’s expression, his body, but as unsettling as it was, it was gone too quickly to be recognised. “The couch is a mess. It’s practically breaking down the middle.”
Harry shrugged. “Still comfortable enough.”
“Not for Blaise to sleep on.”
Harry fought back the surge of irritation. Again, Blaise Zabini. How he fit into their arguments, Harry couldn’t even begin to guess. It was simply another tack that turned their fights into the dangerous territory that made Harry feel ill. He glowered at Draco. “You still want him to come?”
“Yes. I think I’m entitled to invite my friends for a visit. Don’t you agree?” There was a light in Draco’s eyes, foreboding and strangely expectant. His gaze darted over Harry’s face, and suddenly Harry could see the explosion that waited. Far too massive, too tidal for them to handle. Panic flicked at his pulse, speeding his heart in his chest.
He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the reality of that much venom between them so soon. Harry’s throat went dry and he looked away, down at his hands and the way they rested against the tabletop. “Fine,” he said softly. “Fine.”
There was a bitter-tasting silence. The word echoed in the air. Draco sat back slowly. Harry couldn’t meet his eyes, but he could see the way Draco chewed his lip. He knew the other man was watching him.
The stillness settled, heavy as a wet shroud. Harry held his breath, wondering if he should just leave before Draco picked something else to hash out. He found himself looking at Draco’s hand from the corner of his eye. It spasmed against the table, jerking minutely. Fingers curling.
“You fucked that man,” Draco said suddenly, his voice cracking on the last word.
Harry jerked up, staring. Everything fled his mind in one soft whoosh, and he felt himself tottering. “What?”
Draco’s lips were so thin and white that Harry could barely see them. His face contorted, a hundred different furies. But the betrayal flooding his eyes was so thick, so raw, that it made Harry’s own eyes prickle. He scraped out of his chair, unable to keep still. “What?”
“You. Fucked him. After the pub.” The words hung like dead weights in the air, razor-edged and full of a malice that cut, that wasn’t all malice because of the way he could hear Draco withering within each syllable. His words would have hit Harry almost tangibly, had they been stronger, not undercut by the desperation that was sucking Draco down. Storm-coloured irises shot to his, the grey bleeding into the shadows beneath. Draco’s jaw clenched.
Harry’s head swam. It had come… out of nowhere. He couldn’t trace Draco’s accusation, couldn’t see its trajectory, he’d never even… hadn’t thought it even an issue any longer. Hadn’t he said—Gods. Draco thought—
Something righteous and far too unfamiliar lately scrabbled for purchase within him. Harry grabbed the table for balance. His voice, when it came, was completely foreign. “I did not fuck him,” he hissed.
Draco let out a harsh sound. His fingers had gone completely white where they clutched the table. “Salazar, you… At first I couldn’t…” Suddenly Draco’s face was in his hands, and they were rubbing, rubbing hard at the skin of his cheeks, his forehead. “You were so quiet. I couldn’t figure it out. And like an arse, I completely—completely believed—”
“Draco,” Harry gritted out, his heart hammering hard enough to leap straight out of his ears. “What are you talking about?”
“You!” Draco’s hand slammed down onto the table with enough force to jar the crystal salt-shaker right onto its side. “I thought you needed distance. I needed distance! And I couldn’t even concentrate on anything but myself, but you… It got right by me. Oh gods, that’s why you were acting that way.”
The salt-shaker finally rolled off the end of the table and thunked down onto the carpet. Draco’s eyes followed the sound, and then grew so horribly haunted that Harry’s breath caught in his throat. “And then I… In Yorkshire, I…”
Draco’s pale fingers climbed, hovered just over his lips. Harry swallowed, and then the urgency, the magnitude of Draco’s words slammed into him and Harry was speaking before thinking. Needing, just needing to stop the progress of the other man’s thoughts.
“No. No, Draco, I didn’t, that wasn’t what happened, you know that!”
“How? Fuck, how do I know?” Draco stared at him wildly, not even trying to contain the rage, the tears building like small pools in his eyes. Harry started back; he’d never seen Draco cry like this, never heard his voice this desperate, this shattered. Draco’s hand flashed out, shaking so hard, slashing the air. “You can’t even look at me, you won’t even—What the fuck is this, Harry, some effort to make it up to me?”
“Draco—”
The anger was taking over; Harry could see Draco letting it fill him, fuel him, displace the pain for as long as it took to get through this—through this, and suddenly Harry had a horrifying feeling he knew what Draco thought this was. It cascaded around him, sucking his voice away, all his arguments. This was the fight, the one he’d dreaded, and now it had come and Draco had it all wrong, but it was still going to turn out the same way. He couldn’t speak, his tongue had frozen, and Draco leaped into the opening.
“I thought you were giving me space. Gods, I thought… I thought you were angry at me!” It really was a laugh this time, but there was nothing even close to humour in it. Draco’s chin jerked once, twice, his eyes darting over Harry with a frenzy that curled his innards. “You couldn’t even be properly angry at me, could you? You had your fucking guilt getting in the way!”
Something snapped in Harry’s chest. Gods, yes, his guilt. But not about that, never about that. At least that guilt was undeserved, something he could still be proud enough to say he’d never done, cheated on his lover physically. No matter how close he’d actually come – and it was close, there was the guilt – he hadn’t done that. He had not done that. Before Harry knew it, the resentment was there, the indignation, and he lunged forward, closing a hand around Draco’s shoulder in what must have been a painful grip. “I did not sleep with him, Malfoy!”
Draco yanked himself free and stood, putting space between them. The fire had not gone out of his face, and the sight of it, the burn and fervor, made Harry’s heart race. “Oh? How else do you explain it then? Gods, to think that I actually wanted to… that I slept with you after you’d—”
And that hurt. Physically. That night, that stolen, aching, creaking, clandestine moment in Hermione and Ron’s guestroom—Tears rushed up so quickly Harry bit his tongue. That night was something Harry needed, more than he needed air, needed so very badly, the affirmation that he hadn’t lost Draco, that he’d not been stupid enough to do that… That Draco still cared for him, still needed him, still loved him, perhaps. He’d been surviving on that night, the feel of himself within Draco’s body, the body he’d nearly given up all rights to, and yet Draco had gifted himself back to Harry without even a murmur of anything owing. He could still taste the pain in those kisses, and feel the burn of seeking fingers across his skin. And now Draco thought it meaningless, a terrible, wasted mistake. As if Harry had been using him and his body. Wishing that night had never happened.
Harry was so close to choking that he couldn’t believe he could speak at all. But he did, in a rush that flung itself recklessly from his mouth. “Draco, I promise—I swear I never fucked him. I never touched him!”
“You swear?” Draco’s voice dipped, low and dangerous, but still cut through with ragged hurt. “And what happens, Potter, if I don’t believe you?”
“Draco.” He took a breath and tried again. Never had anything hinged so much on his choice of words. Damn it all, never had he needed to be understood as he did now, and now, now, of course, he couldn’t communicate it at all. “Draco, I have never lied to you about that. Never. Not at the beginning, not that night. And not now. Please don’t do this.”
“How do I fucking know that?” Draco spat. It was like poison singeing across the room. “Only your word and how you’ve… gods, how you’ve been behaving. And let me tell you, actions are a lot more reliable, Harry!”
Harry slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the frame. Brick walls, everywhere he turned. And there was no way through them. “I haven’t done anything! Draco. I haven’t even done anything to make you think—”
“What am I supposed to think?” The distance Draco maintained from him was tangible, a huge, gaping gulf that stung Harry all over his body. Draco’s familiar scent, his cologne, against this distance. It stung. “What am I supposed to think? You won’t even argue with me. You let me win every damn time, Potter! As if you have some sin you’re trying to atone for, you think—You owe me, is that it? You fucked another man, you were in another man’s bed, and you owe me for that?”
“No! Draco, I never fucked him! I thought I explained what happened, and you—You understood. Months ago! I never lied to you!”
“And yet you can’t tell me the truth now.” The words cracked, and the helplessness, the embarrassment of it skittered across Draco’s face. Harry could see the self-loathing. “How am I supposed to believe you when you can’t be truthful with me even now?”
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, gaping.
Draco gave into the fury so quickly it was shocking. “You expect me to believe you’re alright with that new couch, or Blaise staying for a week, or with me dictating your hours outside the house? Fucking hell, Harry, I’m not stupid! You would never allow me that kind of control, not ever, not even when we fought so badly we nearly beat the shit out of each other! Oh, no, even then you could tell me to go to hell, you could bloody well disappear for an entire night in order to get your way. But not now. Now you just capitulate. You just… give up! Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think this would somehow make up for it?”
Harry’s jaw hurt, he was clenching it so hard. “I am not trying to make up for anything like that. Merlin, Draco, if you would just listen to me—”
“Then tell me the truth! Fight with me, or— damn it, Harry, at least pretend like you aren’t trying to repent for cheating on me. I’m not a bloody flower. I can handle the sordid details, even if you think you’re doing me a favour by keeping them from me. You’re not. You’re just making it worse!”
Harry felt like yanking out his hair. The pain on Draco’s face, in his entire body, mocked him, and he couldn’t see another way to correct the misunderstanding. “There aren’t any sordid details! Draco, I haven’t lied—”
“I don’t believe you! I. Don’t. Believe. You.” Draco leaned over the table, glaring hard at Harry. “Why should I? You’ve completely changed. I’ve been trying to ignore it—Salazar, you’ve no idea the stupid ways I tried to explain it away. I thought I had done something wrong. I thought you were drifting because we didn’t—because I wasn’t—and we never—” He stopped and jabbed a finger at Harry, and it was trembling. “That’s why I slept with you. I thought that I could—I didn’t want to lose you. Are you satisfied? Like some poor sod, I didn’t want to lose you! And I thought that by doing that—But you’d already been lost, hadn’t you?”
“Don’t you dare cheapen that night!” Harry shouted, unable to keep it inside for one instant longer. Draco’s eyes opened wide and Harry struggled not to move, gods knew if he moved—“Don’t you ever take that night away, Malfoy. You—”
It caught up with him and he rubbed a hand over his face, remembering the frantic way Draco had kissed him, the way he’d groped over his body as if trying to find something. Harry felt the shudder building within him. He snatched at the memory, trying to keep it from being tainted. He could feel those threads snapping around him, between them, one by one by one. And then Draco spoke yet again.
“Which was it? Did you let him—Or did you fuck him?” His voice seethed, broke and fell away, so much softer than what it had been. Harry looked, saw the fear on Draco’s face, fear of being answered, or maybe not being answered. Fear that maybe no answer was enough to tell him what he wanted to know. “What happened?”
“You want to know what happened?” Harry snapped. “Fine. I’ll tell you every last thing that happened and then you can rest easy.”
Draco stared at him; for an instant, his expression caved and Harry thought the other man was going to stop him. But he didn’t care. The idea that he’d done such a thing, that Draco thought Harry would ever be able to have sex with him after betraying him like that, take advantage of him after being inside another man and not telling him—Harry’s anger took over at last, built up for months, pushed down further and further because he’d been a bloody fool trying to avoid this fight, this inevitable, end-all fight. “I was drinking gin. He had blond hair, eyes the colour of sand, and he asked me how my day was. He was good-looking, Draco, he was fucking hot, and he bought me a Scotch, and it tasted divine next to that bloody gin.”
Draco was watching him, his jaw working silently, and Harry felt an illicit rush of pleasure at the sight. He went on, the words pouring forth as if it had only happened yesterday. He could remember it like yesterday, at any rate. “You know what he said? Actually it was more what he didn’t say. He didn’t badmouth you, or call you an idiot, or tell me you weren’t worth it. He asked, I told him about you, and he got it. He got it, Draco, he understood and he didn’t try to convince me that I shouldn’t. Didn’t try to take your place.”
It was getting both easier and harder to talk, easier because it felt like lancing a swollen wound, and harder because he was getting to the part he didn’t want to remember. The moment of weakness. “He touched my hand, Draco. Right here, in the palm. Stroked it with his thumb. And all I could think was that you never did that, you never, ever tried to touch me like that anymore, and I liked it. I liked it. So I touched him back.”
Draco nodded jerkily, a movement Harry couldn’t make sense of, but he didn’t care enough to try at that point. “He asked me back to his house. He said it wouldn’t mean anything, and he was right, I knew it wouldn’t mean anything. Do you understand me? It never would have happened again with him afterward because he didn’t look like you, and he wasn’t you, and he damn well knew it.”
Harry inhaled, and plowed on, but his voice threatened, shook. “And then I looked at him and he was close enough to kiss. I wanted to. I could smell him and feel his hand, and I wanted to.” This part was so important, and he forced himself not to pause. “But he wasn’t you. It wasn’t you and I couldn’t do it. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that enough?”
Draco’s eyes were glimmering. He stared at Harry, his hand pressed against his mouth, and the grief there cut through Harry’s anger at last, leaving him lost and empty, hurting all over again. Merlin, what had he just said?
“Draco,” he whispered. “I did not go home with him. I did not sleep with him. That’s the truth, whatever else you’d rather believe.”
Draco stared at him for another long, silent moment, and then nodded, sluggishly. He visibly drew himself together and Harry watched his fingers squeeze white against the table again. “Then stop hiding,” he whispered. “Why are you avoiding this? Why aren’t you telling me the truth? Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”
Harry drew another steadying breath, but it didn’t make him feel any steadier. “Draco… Gods, I’m not… I don’t want to fight.”
“So you just give in?” Draco’s face twisted. “You’re just going to let me have my way every damn time because you don’t feel like fighting?”
“I don’t think we can handle it!” Harry shot back, somewhat appalled at the ease with which his anger returned. And the fear, the incredible, creeping fear. “I don’t think I’m stable enough, I don’t think we’re stable enough for it! Alright?”
Draco swallowed audibly. His gaze had dropped to the top of the table and for a while Harry thought the other man had forgotten that he was in the room. But when Draco looked up, there was a startling edge to his mouth, and his eyes were dangerously narrow.
“You think I want a relationship with a ghost, Harry? You think I want my way all the time? Fuck you, I don’t need any favours from you! I don’t need you to coddle me like I’m some sort of rare gem you have to keep safe, and shine up, or whatever is going on in your mind! I don’t want that, or need that, and if that’s all you’re able to give me—”
He couldn’t win. He didn’t even know the rules of the game anymore. Harry exploded into the middle of Draco’s tirade. “Well, what the fuck do you want then?”
Almost immediately, Draco shouted back. “I fucking want you! I want you, the old you, not some simpering pushover who won’t even stand up for himself!”
Harry’s head buzzed, the anger was rising so fast. All the old aches, the ones that had led him to that pub in the first place, were streaking up into the light again. “You want me to stand up for myself?”
“I want you to fight with me, you bastard!” Draco cried. “Fight. Show me that you still care about this and not just yourself!”
“Fine! Fine, you want me to be honest, here it is!” Harry could feel the tabletop cracking and he wasn’t sure if it was his grip causing it or something else altogether, if maybe Draco was doing it, if they both were. “I don’t fucking want Zabini here because we can’t even get ourselves together! It’s my bloody house, too, and I hate that you treat it like it’s all yours, so much so that I have to leave just to get a sense of myself!”
Draco’s eyes glittered, half from the tears in them, and half from some fierce undercurrent that was now licking into sight. “Fine. I hate you for leaving, for never staying around to face all the shit that we’ve got. You just go, and you think that takes care of it, and then you come back and expect it all to be fixed, and it’s not! It never is!”
“How can it be?” Harry shouted. He wanted to jump up, to pace, but he didn’t know what would happen if he gave in just that little bit and actually moved, he had no fucking clue. The windows might shatter, the table might just give up the ghost and break right in front of them. “You’ve always got something new to complain about! Nothing’s ever good enough, or fixed enough. You can’t even let it go for a day, it’s just… there. All the time, Draco!”
Strangely, Draco’s face was flushing; not turning red, but colour was driving the pale away, bringing vibrancy into his cheeks. “What else am I supposed to do? You don’t give a damn about any of it. You just let it slide, and you don’t talk about it, and then you blame me when you go and do something that you regret because you’re so damned angry all the time!”
That hit hard, and lower than Harry’d expected. He rose to it before he could think. “Alright! It was my fault, but it wasn’t all my fault, Draco! Yes, I nearly kissed that man, but don’t think you didn’t play a part in that, or that you were just an innocent bystander in all of this! If you would just act like you care about it when I need to talk—”
“So your answer is falling into the arms of another man? Fuck, Harry, just say so next time. I’ll call a little break and we can both go for a quick shag around the corner until our problems are solved.” Draco’s sneer was stark and ugly.
The chair scraped violently as Harry shot out of it. “Don’t you ever joke about that, you arsehole, I don’t ever want that to happen, regardless of what you may think I want!”
“Maybe if you’d just tell me what you want, I wouldn’t have to guess,” Draco hissed back acidly.
“Ask me, then,” Harry snapped. “Ask me what I want and I’ll tell you I don’t want this. I don’t want to shirk around, and if I thought you wouldn’t blow everything out of proportion and leave me at the drop of a wand just when things are starting to turn around, I might just tell you the bloody truth!”
Harry stuttered into a heaving silence, looming across the table, only a foot or so from Draco. He felt shaken, utterly torn apart… and as if he’d finally cut something large and malignant away inside himself. Draco’s eyes were narrowed, staring at him very intently, and Harry felt the scrutiny like a sudden splash of water to his face. As if Draco had expected… His throat heated alarmingly, but he couldn’t move, could only clutch the table and feel that knowing look spearing into him.
Gods. He’d just… Harry blinked. Everything. Right there, in a horribly untidy little bundle, but for the first time he’d held nothing back, and it had very little to do with men in pubs or near kisses – near misses. It was Draco, and himself. All the rest was icing.
Draco’s lips quirked faintly, almost fearfully so. Not a smile. But not the expression Harry had been expecting in response to his rant. Wide grey eyes blinked at him, and Harry saw the tears collected there as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Feel better?” Draco said quietly.
Harry couldn’t nod. He could only shake. Shake, and stare at Draco, and wonder if this could be termed a betrayal, too. “Why? You want more?” he answered haltingly.
Draco stirred. “No. No, that’s enough.”
Harry nodded sharply and sat back, leaving the poor table to its own devices and stretching his palms flat across its surface. Draco sighed and clutched his head in his hands. His shoulders shivered once and Harry realised with a pang that he was barely holding the tears at bay.
“Did that…” Draco swallowed. His voice rose from behind his hands, muffled and weak. “Did that night really mean that much to you?”
Harry nodded, knowing Draco couldn’t see him, but needing to nod. “Yes,” he whispered. The ache flared at the memory of Draco’s dismissal, the shunting aside of touch and kiss and pure feeling. “Yes, it did. Gods, Draco, I thought you hated me. I thought… And then you…”
Draco lifted his head and locked eyes with him. Tears beaded on his lower eyelashes, dampening the colour into silky black. “I know.” His voice trembled. “I know. I just… It was the only thing I could figure, why you were acting that way, and I…”
His head shook helplessly. “I haven’t been sleeping,” was all he said.
Harry took a deep breath. He’d known that. It had been hard to miss, sleeping in the same bed as Draco night after night, feeling the utter stillness of the body beside him. The deep smudges under Draco’s eyes in the morning were more than enough, darkening little by little over the week, but there had been no way to speak about it; the words had dried like sand in Harry’s throat. He’d known Draco was looking at the ceiling, blinking, breathing steadily. He’d known Draco was thinking, and he’d wondered what those thoughts might be for many hours of his own. Their row, and the revelations? A single kiss afterward, perhaps. A wrenching night spent in their friends’ guestroom. But he’d never considered that Draco might be thinking even further back, back to a pub and a night he wasn’t even there to witness, watching Harry and fitting little facts together in his head, one by one until they all… connected.
Harry’s throat closed up. Why, why had he never considered how Draco might be reacting to all of this? He’d seen it everyday, signs and shadows. And he still hadn’t been able to put Draco first, even when he’d thought he was doing it by not rushing him into anything. No, he’d failed to interpret everything, and he’d nearly lost Draco again over a tiny misunderstanding.
Maybe if he’d been paying closer attention—
For a vague instant, the guilt tried to form, to wash up, take over. Drown him. For a vague instant it succeeded. And then Harry didn’t know what he was supposed to feel anymore. Just raw, and empty, on the verge of many things. All of them pointing at one thing, at least, that could not remain foggy and indistinct. Must not remain that way.
“I needed that night,” he whispered, not trusting anything louder. Draco looked at him and the moment was a tremor in the air.
“Me too, Harry.” It cracked, and for once, Draco did not compensate by covering it over.
You have no idea how much. Harry couldn’t find the words to express it, how deeply what they’d done in the warmth of Hermione’s guest bed had healed the scars he’d borne, and how badly it had cut all over again to have it almost thrown away as a petty attempt to fix a lie. But Draco’s vulnerability had been more than plain that night, and now, only now, Harry could understand the risk his lover had thought he was taking. How his own actions had not laid that fear to rest, had instead only strengthened it.
Draco cleared his throat and sat up a bit. Hunched over again as if the effort of holding himself upright was too much. Harry saw Draco’s eyes flicker to his hand, and then to his face. Back again. Harry followed Draco’s gaze down to his own splayed fingers. His heart twinged with a sudden suspicion.
He made a decision and turned his palm upright, extending it just slightly toward Draco. The other man stared at it, and Harry could detect no rise and fall of breath in his shoulders. He was waiting, on something Harry had no control over.
The man in the pub had touched him there. His hands… his right hand in particular… It was the last place left for Draco to reclaim, the one most unattainable because of who else had touched it. Who Harry had allowed to touch it. Harry kept his hand still, palm up, and watched his lover.
At last, Draco’s hand uncurled itself from where he’d tucked it against his body, and inched across the table. Harry didn’t move. Draco’s fingers slid gently over the flesh of his palm, lifting and lowering again. Harry watched them trace over the places the other man had touched, smoothing away the memory until it was a dull haze. Slipping up over his wrist and back down again. Harry curled his fingers, brushing Draco’s callused palm, and gripped his fingertips gently.
Draco’s lips parted and Harry heard a soft breath huff out. There was a slight tremble, and then Draco pressed his palm flat to Harry’s, squeezing his thumb along the side of his hand. Harry swallowed, feeling some wall crack and fall away somewhere. Not the last wall; Merlin knew there were plenty more. But one less now.
Draco did not look up. He seemed content to study their hands in the middle of the table. Harry saw his brows tighten and smooth, and wondered what he was thinking about. He watched Draco for a long time, wondering to himself and listening to the other man breathe.
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Part 5: Something Phenomenal
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Thanks for reading.
Title: Inevitable
Author: me
Pairing: H/D
Rating: R (mostly for swear words)
Summary: Some things are just unavoidable. Part four of the Downpour series.
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine, as usual.
A/N: I'm sorry for this, guys. But they needed to go here. Thanks so much to Coffee for her invaluable feedback, and to Fire and Dracofiend for their wonderful jobs beta-ing. ^_^
Downpour ~ The Quality of Ice ~ Still Tender
ETA: mobi and epub versions of this series available for download here
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Inevitable
It was late again; the windows had darkened long ago, and Harry could feel the beginnings of a headache starting up. That and the ever-present feeling of dread knotting his stomach. Draco’s eyes were cool and hard as flint across the table.
“I haven’t even opened my mouth yet, Harry.”
Harry touched his temple and gazed back at his lover as steadily as he could. He didn’t need Draco to open his mouth. He already knew what kind of fight this would be, and he was already afraid of the potential fury of it. Draco’s face was a mask of nothingness, cold-edged. “We don’t need another couch, Draco,” he muttered.
“Of course not. You won’t even listen to my reasoning.”
Harry glared at the other man. It had been this way for the past week. Every night, almost. They weren’t just spats anymore, even if they always began as something trivial enough to qualify. The distinct difference in the timbre of Draco’s tone was frighteningly familiar, always there. Harry had the sneaking suspicion that Draco was trying to goad them into something huge, pressing slowly but steadily – almost methodically – from every angle over the last week.
A single week since visiting Yorkshire. Felt like longer.
“I have listened, and your reasoning doesn’t make sense,” Harry growled. “It hasn’t convinced me at any rate.”
Draco’s eyes glinted. He sat back. For a split second, Harry felt the presence of something else shivering through Draco’s expression, his body, but as unsettling as it was, it was gone too quickly to be recognised. “The couch is a mess. It’s practically breaking down the middle.”
Harry shrugged. “Still comfortable enough.”
“Not for Blaise to sleep on.”
Harry fought back the surge of irritation. Again, Blaise Zabini. How he fit into their arguments, Harry couldn’t even begin to guess. It was simply another tack that turned their fights into the dangerous territory that made Harry feel ill. He glowered at Draco. “You still want him to come?”
“Yes. I think I’m entitled to invite my friends for a visit. Don’t you agree?” There was a light in Draco’s eyes, foreboding and strangely expectant. His gaze darted over Harry’s face, and suddenly Harry could see the explosion that waited. Far too massive, too tidal for them to handle. Panic flicked at his pulse, speeding his heart in his chest.
He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the reality of that much venom between them so soon. Harry’s throat went dry and he looked away, down at his hands and the way they rested against the tabletop. “Fine,” he said softly. “Fine.”
There was a bitter-tasting silence. The word echoed in the air. Draco sat back slowly. Harry couldn’t meet his eyes, but he could see the way Draco chewed his lip. He knew the other man was watching him.
The stillness settled, heavy as a wet shroud. Harry held his breath, wondering if he should just leave before Draco picked something else to hash out. He found himself looking at Draco’s hand from the corner of his eye. It spasmed against the table, jerking minutely. Fingers curling.
“You fucked that man,” Draco said suddenly, his voice cracking on the last word.
Harry jerked up, staring. Everything fled his mind in one soft whoosh, and he felt himself tottering. “What?”
Draco’s lips were so thin and white that Harry could barely see them. His face contorted, a hundred different furies. But the betrayal flooding his eyes was so thick, so raw, that it made Harry’s own eyes prickle. He scraped out of his chair, unable to keep still. “What?”
“You. Fucked him. After the pub.” The words hung like dead weights in the air, razor-edged and full of a malice that cut, that wasn’t all malice because of the way he could hear Draco withering within each syllable. His words would have hit Harry almost tangibly, had they been stronger, not undercut by the desperation that was sucking Draco down. Storm-coloured irises shot to his, the grey bleeding into the shadows beneath. Draco’s jaw clenched.
Harry’s head swam. It had come… out of nowhere. He couldn’t trace Draco’s accusation, couldn’t see its trajectory, he’d never even… hadn’t thought it even an issue any longer. Hadn’t he said—Gods. Draco thought—
Something righteous and far too unfamiliar lately scrabbled for purchase within him. Harry grabbed the table for balance. His voice, when it came, was completely foreign. “I did not fuck him,” he hissed.
Draco let out a harsh sound. His fingers had gone completely white where they clutched the table. “Salazar, you… At first I couldn’t…” Suddenly Draco’s face was in his hands, and they were rubbing, rubbing hard at the skin of his cheeks, his forehead. “You were so quiet. I couldn’t figure it out. And like an arse, I completely—completely believed—”
“Draco,” Harry gritted out, his heart hammering hard enough to leap straight out of his ears. “What are you talking about?”
“You!” Draco’s hand slammed down onto the table with enough force to jar the crystal salt-shaker right onto its side. “I thought you needed distance. I needed distance! And I couldn’t even concentrate on anything but myself, but you… It got right by me. Oh gods, that’s why you were acting that way.”
The salt-shaker finally rolled off the end of the table and thunked down onto the carpet. Draco’s eyes followed the sound, and then grew so horribly haunted that Harry’s breath caught in his throat. “And then I… In Yorkshire, I…”
Draco’s pale fingers climbed, hovered just over his lips. Harry swallowed, and then the urgency, the magnitude of Draco’s words slammed into him and Harry was speaking before thinking. Needing, just needing to stop the progress of the other man’s thoughts.
“No. No, Draco, I didn’t, that wasn’t what happened, you know that!”
“How? Fuck, how do I know?” Draco stared at him wildly, not even trying to contain the rage, the tears building like small pools in his eyes. Harry started back; he’d never seen Draco cry like this, never heard his voice this desperate, this shattered. Draco’s hand flashed out, shaking so hard, slashing the air. “You can’t even look at me, you won’t even—What the fuck is this, Harry, some effort to make it up to me?”
“Draco—”
The anger was taking over; Harry could see Draco letting it fill him, fuel him, displace the pain for as long as it took to get through this—through this, and suddenly Harry had a horrifying feeling he knew what Draco thought this was. It cascaded around him, sucking his voice away, all his arguments. This was the fight, the one he’d dreaded, and now it had come and Draco had it all wrong, but it was still going to turn out the same way. He couldn’t speak, his tongue had frozen, and Draco leaped into the opening.
“I thought you were giving me space. Gods, I thought… I thought you were angry at me!” It really was a laugh this time, but there was nothing even close to humour in it. Draco’s chin jerked once, twice, his eyes darting over Harry with a frenzy that curled his innards. “You couldn’t even be properly angry at me, could you? You had your fucking guilt getting in the way!”
Something snapped in Harry’s chest. Gods, yes, his guilt. But not about that, never about that. At least that guilt was undeserved, something he could still be proud enough to say he’d never done, cheated on his lover physically. No matter how close he’d actually come – and it was close, there was the guilt – he hadn’t done that. He had not done that. Before Harry knew it, the resentment was there, the indignation, and he lunged forward, closing a hand around Draco’s shoulder in what must have been a painful grip. “I did not sleep with him, Malfoy!”
Draco yanked himself free and stood, putting space between them. The fire had not gone out of his face, and the sight of it, the burn and fervor, made Harry’s heart race. “Oh? How else do you explain it then? Gods, to think that I actually wanted to… that I slept with you after you’d—”
And that hurt. Physically. That night, that stolen, aching, creaking, clandestine moment in Hermione and Ron’s guestroom—Tears rushed up so quickly Harry bit his tongue. That night was something Harry needed, more than he needed air, needed so very badly, the affirmation that he hadn’t lost Draco, that he’d not been stupid enough to do that… That Draco still cared for him, still needed him, still loved him, perhaps. He’d been surviving on that night, the feel of himself within Draco’s body, the body he’d nearly given up all rights to, and yet Draco had gifted himself back to Harry without even a murmur of anything owing. He could still taste the pain in those kisses, and feel the burn of seeking fingers across his skin. And now Draco thought it meaningless, a terrible, wasted mistake. As if Harry had been using him and his body. Wishing that night had never happened.
Harry was so close to choking that he couldn’t believe he could speak at all. But he did, in a rush that flung itself recklessly from his mouth. “Draco, I promise—I swear I never fucked him. I never touched him!”
“You swear?” Draco’s voice dipped, low and dangerous, but still cut through with ragged hurt. “And what happens, Potter, if I don’t believe you?”
“Draco.” He took a breath and tried again. Never had anything hinged so much on his choice of words. Damn it all, never had he needed to be understood as he did now, and now, now, of course, he couldn’t communicate it at all. “Draco, I have never lied to you about that. Never. Not at the beginning, not that night. And not now. Please don’t do this.”
“How do I fucking know that?” Draco spat. It was like poison singeing across the room. “Only your word and how you’ve… gods, how you’ve been behaving. And let me tell you, actions are a lot more reliable, Harry!”
Harry slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the frame. Brick walls, everywhere he turned. And there was no way through them. “I haven’t done anything! Draco. I haven’t even done anything to make you think—”
“What am I supposed to think?” The distance Draco maintained from him was tangible, a huge, gaping gulf that stung Harry all over his body. Draco’s familiar scent, his cologne, against this distance. It stung. “What am I supposed to think? You won’t even argue with me. You let me win every damn time, Potter! As if you have some sin you’re trying to atone for, you think—You owe me, is that it? You fucked another man, you were in another man’s bed, and you owe me for that?”
“No! Draco, I never fucked him! I thought I explained what happened, and you—You understood. Months ago! I never lied to you!”
“And yet you can’t tell me the truth now.” The words cracked, and the helplessness, the embarrassment of it skittered across Draco’s face. Harry could see the self-loathing. “How am I supposed to believe you when you can’t be truthful with me even now?”
“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, gaping.
Draco gave into the fury so quickly it was shocking. “You expect me to believe you’re alright with that new couch, or Blaise staying for a week, or with me dictating your hours outside the house? Fucking hell, Harry, I’m not stupid! You would never allow me that kind of control, not ever, not even when we fought so badly we nearly beat the shit out of each other! Oh, no, even then you could tell me to go to hell, you could bloody well disappear for an entire night in order to get your way. But not now. Now you just capitulate. You just… give up! Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think this would somehow make up for it?”
Harry’s jaw hurt, he was clenching it so hard. “I am not trying to make up for anything like that. Merlin, Draco, if you would just listen to me—”
“Then tell me the truth! Fight with me, or— damn it, Harry, at least pretend like you aren’t trying to repent for cheating on me. I’m not a bloody flower. I can handle the sordid details, even if you think you’re doing me a favour by keeping them from me. You’re not. You’re just making it worse!”
Harry felt like yanking out his hair. The pain on Draco’s face, in his entire body, mocked him, and he couldn’t see another way to correct the misunderstanding. “There aren’t any sordid details! Draco, I haven’t lied—”
“I don’t believe you! I. Don’t. Believe. You.” Draco leaned over the table, glaring hard at Harry. “Why should I? You’ve completely changed. I’ve been trying to ignore it—Salazar, you’ve no idea the stupid ways I tried to explain it away. I thought I had done something wrong. I thought you were drifting because we didn’t—because I wasn’t—and we never—” He stopped and jabbed a finger at Harry, and it was trembling. “That’s why I slept with you. I thought that I could—I didn’t want to lose you. Are you satisfied? Like some poor sod, I didn’t want to lose you! And I thought that by doing that—But you’d already been lost, hadn’t you?”
“Don’t you dare cheapen that night!” Harry shouted, unable to keep it inside for one instant longer. Draco’s eyes opened wide and Harry struggled not to move, gods knew if he moved—“Don’t you ever take that night away, Malfoy. You—”
It caught up with him and he rubbed a hand over his face, remembering the frantic way Draco had kissed him, the way he’d groped over his body as if trying to find something. Harry felt the shudder building within him. He snatched at the memory, trying to keep it from being tainted. He could feel those threads snapping around him, between them, one by one by one. And then Draco spoke yet again.
“Which was it? Did you let him—Or did you fuck him?” His voice seethed, broke and fell away, so much softer than what it had been. Harry looked, saw the fear on Draco’s face, fear of being answered, or maybe not being answered. Fear that maybe no answer was enough to tell him what he wanted to know. “What happened?”
“You want to know what happened?” Harry snapped. “Fine. I’ll tell you every last thing that happened and then you can rest easy.”
Draco stared at him; for an instant, his expression caved and Harry thought the other man was going to stop him. But he didn’t care. The idea that he’d done such a thing, that Draco thought Harry would ever be able to have sex with him after betraying him like that, take advantage of him after being inside another man and not telling him—Harry’s anger took over at last, built up for months, pushed down further and further because he’d been a bloody fool trying to avoid this fight, this inevitable, end-all fight. “I was drinking gin. He had blond hair, eyes the colour of sand, and he asked me how my day was. He was good-looking, Draco, he was fucking hot, and he bought me a Scotch, and it tasted divine next to that bloody gin.”
Draco was watching him, his jaw working silently, and Harry felt an illicit rush of pleasure at the sight. He went on, the words pouring forth as if it had only happened yesterday. He could remember it like yesterday, at any rate. “You know what he said? Actually it was more what he didn’t say. He didn’t badmouth you, or call you an idiot, or tell me you weren’t worth it. He asked, I told him about you, and he got it. He got it, Draco, he understood and he didn’t try to convince me that I shouldn’t. Didn’t try to take your place.”
It was getting both easier and harder to talk, easier because it felt like lancing a swollen wound, and harder because he was getting to the part he didn’t want to remember. The moment of weakness. “He touched my hand, Draco. Right here, in the palm. Stroked it with his thumb. And all I could think was that you never did that, you never, ever tried to touch me like that anymore, and I liked it. I liked it. So I touched him back.”
Draco nodded jerkily, a movement Harry couldn’t make sense of, but he didn’t care enough to try at that point. “He asked me back to his house. He said it wouldn’t mean anything, and he was right, I knew it wouldn’t mean anything. Do you understand me? It never would have happened again with him afterward because he didn’t look like you, and he wasn’t you, and he damn well knew it.”
Harry inhaled, and plowed on, but his voice threatened, shook. “And then I looked at him and he was close enough to kiss. I wanted to. I could smell him and feel his hand, and I wanted to.” This part was so important, and he forced himself not to pause. “But he wasn’t you. It wasn’t you and I couldn’t do it. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that enough?”
Draco’s eyes were glimmering. He stared at Harry, his hand pressed against his mouth, and the grief there cut through Harry’s anger at last, leaving him lost and empty, hurting all over again. Merlin, what had he just said?
“Draco,” he whispered. “I did not go home with him. I did not sleep with him. That’s the truth, whatever else you’d rather believe.”
Draco stared at him for another long, silent moment, and then nodded, sluggishly. He visibly drew himself together and Harry watched his fingers squeeze white against the table again. “Then stop hiding,” he whispered. “Why are you avoiding this? Why aren’t you telling me the truth? Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”
Harry drew another steadying breath, but it didn’t make him feel any steadier. “Draco… Gods, I’m not… I don’t want to fight.”
“So you just give in?” Draco’s face twisted. “You’re just going to let me have my way every damn time because you don’t feel like fighting?”
“I don’t think we can handle it!” Harry shot back, somewhat appalled at the ease with which his anger returned. And the fear, the incredible, creeping fear. “I don’t think I’m stable enough, I don’t think we’re stable enough for it! Alright?”
Draco swallowed audibly. His gaze had dropped to the top of the table and for a while Harry thought the other man had forgotten that he was in the room. But when Draco looked up, there was a startling edge to his mouth, and his eyes were dangerously narrow.
“You think I want a relationship with a ghost, Harry? You think I want my way all the time? Fuck you, I don’t need any favours from you! I don’t need you to coddle me like I’m some sort of rare gem you have to keep safe, and shine up, or whatever is going on in your mind! I don’t want that, or need that, and if that’s all you’re able to give me—”
He couldn’t win. He didn’t even know the rules of the game anymore. Harry exploded into the middle of Draco’s tirade. “Well, what the fuck do you want then?”
Almost immediately, Draco shouted back. “I fucking want you! I want you, the old you, not some simpering pushover who won’t even stand up for himself!”
Harry’s head buzzed, the anger was rising so fast. All the old aches, the ones that had led him to that pub in the first place, were streaking up into the light again. “You want me to stand up for myself?”
“I want you to fight with me, you bastard!” Draco cried. “Fight. Show me that you still care about this and not just yourself!”
“Fine! Fine, you want me to be honest, here it is!” Harry could feel the tabletop cracking and he wasn’t sure if it was his grip causing it or something else altogether, if maybe Draco was doing it, if they both were. “I don’t fucking want Zabini here because we can’t even get ourselves together! It’s my bloody house, too, and I hate that you treat it like it’s all yours, so much so that I have to leave just to get a sense of myself!”
Draco’s eyes glittered, half from the tears in them, and half from some fierce undercurrent that was now licking into sight. “Fine. I hate you for leaving, for never staying around to face all the shit that we’ve got. You just go, and you think that takes care of it, and then you come back and expect it all to be fixed, and it’s not! It never is!”
“How can it be?” Harry shouted. He wanted to jump up, to pace, but he didn’t know what would happen if he gave in just that little bit and actually moved, he had no fucking clue. The windows might shatter, the table might just give up the ghost and break right in front of them. “You’ve always got something new to complain about! Nothing’s ever good enough, or fixed enough. You can’t even let it go for a day, it’s just… there. All the time, Draco!”
Strangely, Draco’s face was flushing; not turning red, but colour was driving the pale away, bringing vibrancy into his cheeks. “What else am I supposed to do? You don’t give a damn about any of it. You just let it slide, and you don’t talk about it, and then you blame me when you go and do something that you regret because you’re so damned angry all the time!”
That hit hard, and lower than Harry’d expected. He rose to it before he could think. “Alright! It was my fault, but it wasn’t all my fault, Draco! Yes, I nearly kissed that man, but don’t think you didn’t play a part in that, or that you were just an innocent bystander in all of this! If you would just act like you care about it when I need to talk—”
“So your answer is falling into the arms of another man? Fuck, Harry, just say so next time. I’ll call a little break and we can both go for a quick shag around the corner until our problems are solved.” Draco’s sneer was stark and ugly.
The chair scraped violently as Harry shot out of it. “Don’t you ever joke about that, you arsehole, I don’t ever want that to happen, regardless of what you may think I want!”
“Maybe if you’d just tell me what you want, I wouldn’t have to guess,” Draco hissed back acidly.
“Ask me, then,” Harry snapped. “Ask me what I want and I’ll tell you I don’t want this. I don’t want to shirk around, and if I thought you wouldn’t blow everything out of proportion and leave me at the drop of a wand just when things are starting to turn around, I might just tell you the bloody truth!”
Harry stuttered into a heaving silence, looming across the table, only a foot or so from Draco. He felt shaken, utterly torn apart… and as if he’d finally cut something large and malignant away inside himself. Draco’s eyes were narrowed, staring at him very intently, and Harry felt the scrutiny like a sudden splash of water to his face. As if Draco had expected… His throat heated alarmingly, but he couldn’t move, could only clutch the table and feel that knowing look spearing into him.
Gods. He’d just… Harry blinked. Everything. Right there, in a horribly untidy little bundle, but for the first time he’d held nothing back, and it had very little to do with men in pubs or near kisses – near misses. It was Draco, and himself. All the rest was icing.
Draco’s lips quirked faintly, almost fearfully so. Not a smile. But not the expression Harry had been expecting in response to his rant. Wide grey eyes blinked at him, and Harry saw the tears collected there as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Feel better?” Draco said quietly.
Harry couldn’t nod. He could only shake. Shake, and stare at Draco, and wonder if this could be termed a betrayal, too. “Why? You want more?” he answered haltingly.
Draco stirred. “No. No, that’s enough.”
Harry nodded sharply and sat back, leaving the poor table to its own devices and stretching his palms flat across its surface. Draco sighed and clutched his head in his hands. His shoulders shivered once and Harry realised with a pang that he was barely holding the tears at bay.
“Did that…” Draco swallowed. His voice rose from behind his hands, muffled and weak. “Did that night really mean that much to you?”
Harry nodded, knowing Draco couldn’t see him, but needing to nod. “Yes,” he whispered. The ache flared at the memory of Draco’s dismissal, the shunting aside of touch and kiss and pure feeling. “Yes, it did. Gods, Draco, I thought you hated me. I thought… And then you…”
Draco lifted his head and locked eyes with him. Tears beaded on his lower eyelashes, dampening the colour into silky black. “I know.” His voice trembled. “I know. I just… It was the only thing I could figure, why you were acting that way, and I…”
His head shook helplessly. “I haven’t been sleeping,” was all he said.
Harry took a deep breath. He’d known that. It had been hard to miss, sleeping in the same bed as Draco night after night, feeling the utter stillness of the body beside him. The deep smudges under Draco’s eyes in the morning were more than enough, darkening little by little over the week, but there had been no way to speak about it; the words had dried like sand in Harry’s throat. He’d known Draco was looking at the ceiling, blinking, breathing steadily. He’d known Draco was thinking, and he’d wondered what those thoughts might be for many hours of his own. Their row, and the revelations? A single kiss afterward, perhaps. A wrenching night spent in their friends’ guestroom. But he’d never considered that Draco might be thinking even further back, back to a pub and a night he wasn’t even there to witness, watching Harry and fitting little facts together in his head, one by one until they all… connected.
Harry’s throat closed up. Why, why had he never considered how Draco might be reacting to all of this? He’d seen it everyday, signs and shadows. And he still hadn’t been able to put Draco first, even when he’d thought he was doing it by not rushing him into anything. No, he’d failed to interpret everything, and he’d nearly lost Draco again over a tiny misunderstanding.
Maybe if he’d been paying closer attention—
For a vague instant, the guilt tried to form, to wash up, take over. Drown him. For a vague instant it succeeded. And then Harry didn’t know what he was supposed to feel anymore. Just raw, and empty, on the verge of many things. All of them pointing at one thing, at least, that could not remain foggy and indistinct. Must not remain that way.
“I needed that night,” he whispered, not trusting anything louder. Draco looked at him and the moment was a tremor in the air.
“Me too, Harry.” It cracked, and for once, Draco did not compensate by covering it over.
You have no idea how much. Harry couldn’t find the words to express it, how deeply what they’d done in the warmth of Hermione’s guest bed had healed the scars he’d borne, and how badly it had cut all over again to have it almost thrown away as a petty attempt to fix a lie. But Draco’s vulnerability had been more than plain that night, and now, only now, Harry could understand the risk his lover had thought he was taking. How his own actions had not laid that fear to rest, had instead only strengthened it.
Draco cleared his throat and sat up a bit. Hunched over again as if the effort of holding himself upright was too much. Harry saw Draco’s eyes flicker to his hand, and then to his face. Back again. Harry followed Draco’s gaze down to his own splayed fingers. His heart twinged with a sudden suspicion.
He made a decision and turned his palm upright, extending it just slightly toward Draco. The other man stared at it, and Harry could detect no rise and fall of breath in his shoulders. He was waiting, on something Harry had no control over.
The man in the pub had touched him there. His hands… his right hand in particular… It was the last place left for Draco to reclaim, the one most unattainable because of who else had touched it. Who Harry had allowed to touch it. Harry kept his hand still, palm up, and watched his lover.
At last, Draco’s hand uncurled itself from where he’d tucked it against his body, and inched across the table. Harry didn’t move. Draco’s fingers slid gently over the flesh of his palm, lifting and lowering again. Harry watched them trace over the places the other man had touched, smoothing away the memory until it was a dull haze. Slipping up over his wrist and back down again. Harry curled his fingers, brushing Draco’s callused palm, and gripped his fingertips gently.
Draco’s lips parted and Harry heard a soft breath huff out. There was a slight tremble, and then Draco pressed his palm flat to Harry’s, squeezing his thumb along the side of his hand. Harry swallowed, feeling some wall crack and fall away somewhere. Not the last wall; Merlin knew there were plenty more. But one less now.
Draco did not look up. He seemed content to study their hands in the middle of the table. Harry saw his brows tighten and smooth, and wondered what he was thinking about. He watched Draco for a long time, wondering to himself and listening to the other man breathe.
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Part 5: Something Phenomenal
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Thanks for reading.
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Date: 2006-10-02 03:44 pm (UTC)From:But yay! You believe they want to work things out. THat's a wonderful sign. Means I haven't dropped too far into despair-land. ^__^ Thank you for this review.
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Date: 2006-10-02 11:43 pm (UTC)From:Hey, needed to ask you a question, but have no idea what your email address is. Mind sharing? Or, if you like, simply email me at empathic_siren@yahoo.com and I'll explain.