title: Like Molasses, Only Sweeter
author: Me
notes: Written for Octune in the miettesdesmots challenge in LJ. Prompts: chap, trick, fallacy, and "I can't be that."
xx
"You're a disgrace," Harry says, "and, also, a pouf. You're—"
Draco looks up at Harry, eyelids drooping and somehow he can't finish that last insult. He is his boyfriend, after all, and they are practically married and for the last four weeks Draco's been crashing—living—at Harry's flat. Lying around and having sex and drinking Mai Tais, that's what they've been doing—almost like they're on a honeymoon, only without the white dress and absolutely no sunset-on-the-beach.
Draco doesn't like sunsets, anyway; Harry remembers Draco saying, once, that he hated sunsets. Distaste had dripped from every word, like sickeningly sweet candy. Like molasses.
Draco giggles quietly into Harry's collarbone. "You smell good, Harry," he whispers, hiccupping slightly at the last syllable. Harry knows Draco's drunk when he can't speak with that upper-crust accent he always has, no matter how far away he is from the Manor or his mother—ashes can't follow you to London—and Harry has always hated that sharp tone in Draco's voice when he speaks. Every word cuts, deeper than any knife, all of his syllables polished to perfection.
He's beginning to suspect that Draco may not actually be sober. Draco pinches him on the arm, and he yelps. "Draco," he says warningly, but already Draco's attention is somewhere else.
Apparently the doorway to Harry's flat is fascinating, because Draco's staring at it with shining eyes and something like innocence lurking in the corner of his smile; and Harry decides to end it, because this act of fallacy has gone far enough. Ignoring the fact that Draco is probably drunk—he would never cross his eyes like that, not even as a joke—Harry hauls him mightily in the room.
"You know, Harry, old chap," Draco burbles happily, "this was the bes' night of m' life."
"It was?" Harry prepares himself for the inevitable 'Ah ha!' that Draco is warming up to.
In the meantime he strips Draco to his underwear, despite the wide open windows and the street that lay beyond them. Dressing him up in fluffy white pajamas (a childhood favorite), Harry muses. It's the closest thing to a lay he's had in weeks. He has no desire to pursue that area any further, of course not.
Draco licks his lips absentmindedly and Harry's eyes are drawn to his pink tongue almost involuntarily.
"Yes." Draco's smile is impossibly coquettish and his lips far too red for someone who only had a glass of white wine. "Yes, yes, yes!"
Ignoring the vaguely dirty sounds coming out of Draco's mouth, Harry puts Draco's arm around his neck. However small and delicate Draco seems, he's certainly not as light as a feather, and Harry's beginning to think that alcohol affects Draco more than he'd previously thought; making him gain weight is something new entirely. Harry resists grunting with the effort, knowing that Draco, even drunk, will take offense and he really only wants to get him in bed.
Funny how this whole situation seems to belong in the gutter, he heaves the softly snickering heap of blond hair onto the bed, when truthfully all I want is to sleep.
And maybe cuddle, he addsthoughtfully, watching as Draco curls himself into an admittedly, quite adorable, little ball.
He places a pillow under Draco's head and in return the blond mumbles a soft 'thank you' to the spot above him. He yawns and places a hand under his head, something Harry always thought only happens in the movies.
"I'd do anythin' for you, Hariii," Draco says into his pillow. "An'thin'."
"Really?"
"Yes, really!"
Draco thinks Harry's teasing and throws a pillow at him, half-heartedly. It hits Harry's thigh with a soft thump, and Draco giggles.
There's something mildly disturbing about that particular action, and for a moment Harry can't figure out why. He doesn't like this feeling, like his boyfriend acting nice is a sign of the Apocalypse, but there it is.
He realizes that the something weird was Draco giggling. Draco doesn't giggle, and nor does he laugh. That it is such an unusual part of their life niggles at him, but first he has a drunken blond in his bedroom to take care of.
"Up you get," he says, softly.
Sensing the change in Harry's mood, Draco complies with a small smile on his face, just barely skirting the edges of smugness, but then he's drunk so it doesn't count, not really. "Thanks, Harry," he sighs, head tucked snugly into a large down pillow on the wrong end of the bed.
"You're welcome, Draco."
Even asleep Draco doesn't look innocent, far from it, but there's a defensive quality to his sleep that makes Harry yearn to protect him—wrap his arms around him and whisper to him that it's okay. A dream, of course, as Draco will never allow him to do such a thing. Clichéd, is what Draco would call it.
"Harry?"
Draco sits up suddenly and stares at him with sleep-blurred eyes. "You're not tryin' t' trick me, are you?" he says suspiciously.
"No, Draco," he replies, rather sadly, "I'm not."
Draco is still doubtful. "You weren't about t'—t' take advantage, were you?"
In Draco's world 'taking advantage' means comfort. Comfort in the form of hugs and snuggles and embarrassingly sweet gestures that everyone scorns in public, but long for in secret. The kinds of things that Harry secretly and publicly wants to do to Draco, which is just sick, really; Draco's the farthest thing from sweet and cuddly Harry can think of, he really is.
His wide eyes, which look deceptively blue in the darkness, remind Harry of an abandoned child. One who has had to fight for himself for always, just like Harry had to do when he was under the Dursleys' roof. He sighs.
"No, Draco," he says tiredly. I actually made myself believe he could be that innocent. How stupid of me.
"Only if you become schizophrenic and turn into an innocent, lost little boy with no one to love." His sad, wistful smile tells Draco all he needs to know; this lost little boy, someone innocent and someone Harry can keep innocent—
"I can't be that," Draco admonishes. –is what Harry wants. He focuses his eyes on Harry and looks more sober than he has all night. His words are slurred, but only slightly, and his usual tone of voice has returned, good as new.
Tilting his head, Harry stares back. It was good, heplaces a hand on Draco's, while it lasted. Draco isn't pure. He's a fighter, he fights for what he wants to get and what he is determined to keep; always so sweetly vulnerable, delicate and fierce at the same time, because of his fear of losing more.
But this Draco, staring at him as if he's afraid he's messed up monumentally, hand trembling and hiding them under the sheets—he looks like someone who has lost his innocence, and his home, and his loved ones, and is afraid of losing what he thought could be his to keep, for always.
And knowing this, seeing him in this light, Harry knows he can never leave him.
Smiling tenderly, he puts his mouth near Draco's ear—he's not willing to give up his romantic fantasy, at least not fully—and whispers, "But I like corrupted little snots, too." And Draco smiles at him, a real smile, because he thinks he knows what Harry's saying and the exchange wasn't about the words, anyway, since they hadn't even made sense. He smiles, and laughs, and places a soft kiss on the tip of Harry's nose just to throw him off balance.
Leaning against his large pillow (they're still on the wrong end, but it fits, somehow), he closes his eyes, and says, so softly Harry can barely hear him, "I can be that."
xx