Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any of these lovely characters...They belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.
Author's notes: This is my second H/D ficlet that was created in response to the seasonal fic challenge the Armchair_Slash community posed. Though, this time, I bypassed "pre-slash" and shot for full-fledged, all out SLASH in my chosen seasonal tale. I'm new at this, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Seasons of Us
Icy fingertips trace the line of my shoulder blade and I shiver. His touch so faint, and yet so possessive, whispers across my bare skin, screams within my soul. I twist in his arms, needing, burning to see that face. Grey locks on green. And a gasp splits the silence.
My
gasp.Those eyes, while frozen within my gaze, seem uncertain…unfamiliar to their owner as if they belong to another altogether. Though I continue to watch, staggered, unable to turn away as a vague awareness skitters among his whirl of confusion, lashes reflexively squeezing shut. A single tear slips down the pale downcast cheek and I feel my body reawaken in that moment, charged. Reaching forward, I press my lips tentatively against the salty trail, tasting my lover beneath the sorrow. I feel the platinum fringe that masks his shame flutter against my skin and instinct guides me to move both palms to his face to frame. Nose to nose, I caress the silkiness of his cheek bone, his jaw, his neck, until he dares to meet my gaze again a few strokes later.
He stares at me mutely, raising his proud chin a notch and I find myself drowning in him, losing myself. The glass has shattered and with it the ability to reflect. Shades of depth, emotion peer back at me unblinkingly. Tonight the mirror exists in me, not him…and the surge of power fleetingly tempts my starved core to let it remain as such. To let his vulnerability speak for the both of us…to hide behind it as he so often has in the past.
But the pure, raw anguish before me tugs at my heart and, on a whim, the choice is made. One hand reluctantly pulls away to remove my glasses while the other's thumb delicately glides over trembling lips. I look out now upon blurred snowflakes caking the windowpane, fuzzy sparks of light flickering from the hearth, though I have never beheld anything in my life that was clearer, crisper than the joining we both experienced right then as flesh molded to flesh; legs, arms, fingers desperately tangled as shudders collapsed upon themselves and sobs filled the air.
Much later, I lay wrapped around my sleeping lover, my hand resting upon his heart. The last flame had died down a half-hour before and from the sound of it, winter's harsh grip was loosening its hold as well. The steady, rhythmic drips of nature thawing seem to signal March's grand arrival…and along with it the promise of an early spring.
Though the life beneath my touch pulses between us and I suddenly feel rather than hear the icicles melting. It isn't surprising; the seasons have long stopped ruling our state of minds, bowing to a force all our own.
Winter…spring…summer…fall…
Each was essentially meaningless, a random patch of marked dates strung together to measure the passage of existence. An existence a world away from that of the one we lived in, the one we discovered in each other. I look to him; he looks to me; and we are grounded in time as one, grounded in the present, the past, the future. For, the seasons are within us.
Others didn't understand…they couldn't. But we did. Just as we understood how mirrors could be used, abused, shared, and cracked all in a matter of seconds…