Title: Cold
Author: Tiny Q
E-Mail: one legged lesbian seagull hotmail com (Please add 3 underscores, one "at" sign, and a period)
A/N: Well, I really have no idea where this came from. I wrote it back in December, before exams started, at like two in the morning. It just struck me and I had to get it out, all of it. When I edited it I ended up rewriting the entire thing, which I think made it even more neurotic and wrong than before. But yes, I can't really describe it; all I can do is let you read it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even my sanity for I sold that. I think that perhaps it was a bad idea on my part. I wonder if I can buy it back, I think I need to...
Cold
ooo
Ginny crawled onto her bed, closing the hangings around her firmly. She had long ago placed a silencing charm around them, not only to keep others from hearing her inside, but to keep her from hearing the others as well. When she was in her bed it was like being in a safe place, a place where no one else could get to her. Or at least, no one who didn't matter, anyway.
She slowly pulled back the thin sheets of her bed and crawled under them, shivering as they did nothing to keep the cold of the castle away from her. She revelled in the thrill of them, the feeling of utter darkness that they brought. She knew that she couldn't die of being cold; she could only get sick from being cold and then die of the sickness. It would be a bitter sweet way to die really. She would drift off to sleep and never wake again.
She could still remember when she had relished warmth, when she longed to sit in the sun and bask in its glory; longed to soak in water that was almost unbearably hot, surrounded by cheerful bubbles that popped with gentle sounds. She couldn't believe that she had ever been so stupid. Heat drove the darkness within her away. She needed her darkness, her darkness protected her, protected him.
She lied there for a few minutes, waiting. He would come; he always did, always had for the past few months. She should blush at the memory of their first encounter. Should feel ashamed at the way he had stumbled across her as she had been striving so hard to reach her climax, surrounded by warm, comforting blankets and pillows. She should feel ashamed of how the instant he touched her, the instant his coldness reached her core, she climaxed in a way she never had before. She should have been ashamed, but she wasn't. If anything the memory simply made her anticipate what was to come tonight, as it did every night when they were alone.
The drawings around her bed shifted slightly, but she did not roll onto her other side to see him enter. He was never one for grand entrances; he only wanted attention once he had arrived. The way his fingers skimmed over the side of her hip, lightly brushing against the bone, told her that he wanted her attention in a desperate way. That was all he had ever really wanted, attention, though he never really got what he had searched so hard for, and she pitied him in a way.
The bed dipped as he lay down behind her, spooning his body against hers. She closed her eyes as his coldness washed over her, consumed her, consoled her. She let out a breathy sigh as his hand drifted up from her hip to brush against her pert nipple, circling it once before continuing its path upward. She shivered in the elicit delight that only he could bring her. She could almost imagine the way his icy breath would tickle the back of her neck, send bursts of cold tearing through her body. She wished with all her might that she could feel that, if only just once.
"This is a skimpy little thing," he whispered into her ear, his hand coming to a rest at the top of the low cut nightgown she was wearing. She held her breath as his fingers toyed with the lace trim, hoping he would surpass the usual foreplay and do things that her body longed for him to do. "Tell me, did you wear this for me?"
"Everything I wear I wear for you," she replied quietly, leaning back into him, wishing his cold would consume her whole, never let her out. Wishing that she could drown in it and never wake up to the hell she lived in ever again.
"Mmm," he said, his fingers still playing with the lace. She looked down on those fingers in frustration, trying to encourage them to do what they usually were already doing at this point. "I have seen those scraps you call skirts, hidden beneath the sacks this school calls robes." His silky voice washed over her like a splash of cold water on a hot day. She closed her eyes and tried to memorize it, tried to etch it into her mind so that when she could no longer be with him she could at least keep a part of him within her.
His lips, his ice cold lips, pressed into her neck and she shivered as the coldness of it pressed intimately into her skin. She longed for his kisses, longed for the way they made her feel, longed for the way they made the darkness grow. She bit her lip as he kissed her again, then again, moving upward, leaving a trail of ice in their wake. She could feel her body begin to shake, to shiver in an attempt to counteract the drugging effect that he had over her, but she ignored it. What did her body know of what her mind wanted, no, needed? "They make me want to take you right there in the class room," he said, a slight growl in his voice.
"So why don't you?" she whispered yet again, as if she was scared her words would scare him away. She needed him, her darkness depended on him, she couldn't live without him. She needed his arms around her, his hands stroking her, his kisses consoling her. She needed it all like she needed oxygen.
"How I love it when you talk like that," he growled, taking her earlobe into her mouth. She gasped as the sensation flooded through her, a bittersweet shock of ice running through her body like electricity. She leant further back into him, moaning as his tongue did wicked things to her flesh, fighting off the heat of it. She needed the heat to die, to leave her only the cold, to leave her to him.
His hand, which had been playing with the lace of her gown, suddenly pressed into her chest, the cold of it seeping into her heart. She moaned, writing against him, hoping, wishing, urging the hand to move, to spread the coldness within in him along her body, to spread it like a balm. A balm which would cure everything this world had ever done to her, cure everything that had gone so wrong.
"Please," she said pitifully, but was not ashamed to do so. If one little word could bring the release she knew he was capable of giving her, then god damn it she would say that word over and over until the darkness consumed her completely and she could no longer say a thing, let alone that word. And still she would think it, obsess over it, just as she did his coldness, his never ending ice.
"Please what, Ginny?" he hissed in her ear, his hand moving across her skin with a slowness that was pure torture. His hand was pressing into her flesh so hard that she knew she would bruise, knew that she would have marks on her body that she would not be able to explain rationally to anyone. She didn't care though, couldn't care, she knew it was his way of trying to feel her, his way of trying to know that she was truly there, for in this world, nothing was truly real, was it?
"Please," she repeated, leaning back into him with all her might, trying to wiggle something out of him that never came; tried to wiggle a response out of him that he was no longer capable of producing, no longer capable of operating. She ground into him until she knew that he knew what she was trying to do. His hand stopped moving, as did his lips. She froze, he couldn't, he wouldn't, she couldn't handle it if he did, she would surely cease to exist. The darkness would die.
"You know I can't," he said, the tone of his voice ripping something from her. It was the first time that she had heard that tone, that tone of such heart shattering regret, and it caused her to turn in his arms and look up at him. He stared back down on her with young eyes that were far too old, far too jaded, to be in his skull.
Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but one of his icy fingers came up and settled itself on her lips, causing her to shiver despite herself. All she could do was stare at him, wallow in his coldness while the essence of him wallowed in pain, in utter isolation. She had never felt so selfish in her life. How could she expect so much of him when it was impossible for her to return the favour? But then, wasn't that what darkness did to you, took away your ability to feel for anyone, not even yourself?
"I miss it," he said finally, his jaded eyes dropping away from hers. He let his head fall onto her chest, pushing her back into the mattress bellow her. Her hand went up to cradle his head, to entwine in his icy hair, causing her to shiver even more as the icy strands slipped against the sensitive skin. "Merlin how I miss it."
She opened her mouth for a second time, but nothing came out. What could she say? How could she take away his pain? All she could do was hold him, stroke him, feel him, absorb his absolute cold, but he couldn't feel any of it. Her gestures would be forever lost on him, only left to giver her self comfort.
So instead she kept her mouth shut, instead opted to lie there, with his nothing weight resting over her, enveloping her like the iciest of blankets. She most likely would have fallen asleep, fallen asleep with that which she needed most draped over her, if it had not bee for the question. A question which had always been there, always been in the back of her mind, but she had never let it out, refused to let it out.
"Why do you come?" it slipped out, her eyes widening as the words hung in the silence. "Why me?" She went still, fear enveloping her as well as the cold. What would he do? What if he never came back to her? What if he found someone else? Would she be able to make it, to find another source of cold? It was one thing for her to leave him, but she didn't think she was strong enough to survive him leaving her.
He remained silent, unmoving, as though there was nothing inside of him that still operated, like the rest of him. As though she had imagined everything that they had ever done, every word that they had ever whispered to one another, every sensation that they had ever fed off of one another. She ached to hear his icy voice once more, to feel it wash over her as though nothing was wrong, even if his words were those of rejection.
"You always seemed so full of fire," he finally whispered into her neck, his arms wrapping around her more tightly. She returned the gesture, hoping with all her might that she could somehow infuse him into her, so that his cold would feed her darkness for all times. "So full of life. I thought that maybe if I-" his voice cracked. Something inside her broke. "Maybe if I could hold you I could feel something other than this damned never ending cold."
Ginny closed her eyes at his words. How could he hope to find fire within her when all she was was cold and darkness? How could he hope to find salvation in her when she was nothing but a drifter in search of salvation herself? How could two people such as themselves have come together in search of being saved only to feed off of each other's darkness? How was it fair?
"But I think I have ruined you," he continued brokenly, his voice cracking yet again. She knew that if he could cry, that if he was still capable of crying, his pearl like tears would soak her neck, sending icy trails on their way downward. "Your fire is gone, I've killed it." He paused for a moment. "I am death."
"No Draco," she whimpered, her voice strained with emotion, emotion for him, emotion for her, emotion for the unfairness of it all. "You could never break me." She continued to stroke his head. "I was already broken, broken beyond repair. In you I find my darkness."
"You shouldn't be dark," he replied, his fingers curling into her skin, biting at her, causing pain to shoot through her. She revealed in it, existed in it, needed it. It was all that was real anymore, she knew nothing but pain. Pain and cold and darkness. "You should burn, like the sun and be free of me. Be free of this damned world."
"I could never leave you Draco," she said, her fingers clutching at him as his were at her. She wished he could feel them as she felt this fingers bruise and tear at her skin. She knew that even pain was better than nothing at all.
Tears slowly began to flow from her eyes, traveling down her cheeks in hot trails that reminded her that despite the darkness within her the light was still fighting to be revived. Fighting to bring back the heat and love she had once seen in the world. But she didn't think about that, she couldn't, not right then. All she could think about were the tears, the tears that were for him, for her, for their situation, for their broken world. The tears that he could not shed for himself, would never again be able to shed for himself.
Ginny opened her eyes and stared through the boy resting on top of her, stared through the surreal blue mist that followed him everywhere. She stared through him as everyone did, as everyone was destined to do for eternity until he found whatever it was that would allow him to pass on. Yet she knew, somewhere deep inside of her, that she would be the only one, the only one, to ever see what was truly hidden inside of him. The only one to ever see the true Draco Malfoy.
ooo
A/N: So, who didn't get it? Who thinks I am absolutely insane for writing something like that? Who thinks I am scary? I think I will raise my hand and jump around to all those questions. ... Yah, I don't think that there is any helping me. Gah. So, what did you think? Thoroughly creeped out? Thoroughly pissed at me for writing about poltergeists instead of another chapter of Painting an Oyster? Gah again.