Feedback is appreciated. Really, tis. And not because I'm a praise hoor, or because my ego needs stroking, but because it really.. means something to me when a fic affects a reader. Or something. Aw shucks, don't make me get all schmoopy, just - if you enjoy, let me know?

To the Victor Go the Spoils

Rivalry adds so much to the charms of one's conquests. –Louisa May Alcott

—

You. Bloody. Fuck.

It was hardly the first time Malfoy'd spat invective in his direction, but the primal tone instantly lifts the fine hairs on the nape of Harry's neck. Skin prickling chill crashes head-on into heating anger, and he swings round too quickly, swaying briefly as he regains his balance. When he looks up to face his accuser, looming in the locker room door like a storm cloud, he almost wishes he hadn't: The blood that's flared splotchily across Draco's face makes him look unhinged. Dangerous.

His chest still heaving with the exertion of the game, he crosses the floor with furious efficiency, crisp boots on the stone echoing like anvils in the empty space. Hisses through scraping teeth, close enough that Harry feels the air currents.

You did that– with your– You did it on purpose. Saint Fucking Potter cheated to win.

You're mental. Shoving his broom into the tiled corner, Harry turns away to yank at his robe, tired and distracted and in no mood for–

"Youngest seeker in a century." The icy voice encloses the phrase with palpable quotation marks forged of pure mockery. Famous Harry Potter. And now, of course, Captain Potter. Always have to be in charge. Always have to be the fucking star.

Piss off, Malfoy. For once, just–

I had it. By rights, the win was mine.

Their years of ingrained enmity and his own native temper have him striking back with equal malice before he can consider the wisdom of it. Like a reflex, he leans toward the simmering figure. Relishes the way the sarcasm feels in his mouth.

You had it, but you dropped it, you git. To win you have to actually hold on to the snitch.

Watching the blood drain suddenly away from the pointed face is more unnerving than seeing it spread, rubylush, across it, but he enjoys an adrenaline-soaked bolt of triumph at seeing the effect of his words.

It's a short victory.

As his last syllable melts away into the humid air, he senses a shift. Steps back instinctively but finds himself suddenly, inexplicably, with no breath at all. The ceiling gazes back at him reticently.

The view from the floor sends him right back there. He remembers the sound of it. Like dry leaves crunching. Snap of twigs. The copper cauldron taste of the blood running into his throat as he lay body bound in the train car under the cloak. He's alarmed for a moment before he realizes he isn't in a Petrificus again here, now. Here, now, Malfoy's just landed a particularly well-aimed blow to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. The coiled panic yields to the ecstatic relief of his diaphragm relaxing and he finally pulls air. Rolls. Rises. Is confused, because he's suddenly alone in the cavern of Gryffindor lockers.

Except that he isn't.

Through the one lens not askew, he glimpses the swirl of green fabric just in time and swings a hasty fist, half-blind but with the whole weight of his body. Connects with a satisfying thud against the high point of Malfoy's left cheekbone. It hurts, the pain radiating hotly down his knuckles, but he grins with feral pleasure, exhilarated by the grimace of pure shock on the contorted face. Thrilled by the way the skin's bruising immediately, faint purple rising to the milk colored surface.

Sprawled backward onto the polished bench, Draco seizes what he can reach, which is only the edge of red shirt fabric, but it's enough. Harry tips toward him and they fall, grappling like hawks locked in mid-air combat. Surprised to find himself on top when they land, Harry quickly tightens his grip on the pinned arms and stiffens his knees against the furious flail of hip and leg, not even aware that he's snarling as he does. Sucking in desperate breaths, he licks at a bead of sweat that's run onto his lip, unable to wipe it away with his occupied hands. Suddenly notices the wide eyes locked on his mouth.

Through the black fringe flicking into his vision, Harry stares hard into the granite eyes and is jolted by a flicker of what he'd seen there just minutes before, as they'd hovered alone, high above the pitch far from everyone else, the chilly November mist mingling with the hot sweat gliding over their faces.

That look in Draco's eyes when Harry'd lunged for the winged ball held tauntingly in Slytherin fingers, and missed, his hand landing instead squarely on the opposing Seeker's thigh. That immediate slide from an expression of smug gloat to– To. Something else. Something that made Malfoy drop the snitch, not even noticing it go.

It'd made Harry breathe hard then, and it's making him breathe hard now, and it's getting worse the longer he thinks about it because now he wonders: Had he– lingered? Even through his own glove and Draco's thick Quidditch trousers he'd faintly felt the pulse there, thick red music drumming through the expanse of muscled thigh. How many beats did he feel before he'd snatched his hand away– how long was it before he finally pulled his arm back and dove, sweeping the falling fleck of whirring gold safely into his palm? A few seconds? Hours, felt like. Even the snitch had paused as though it, too, was mesmerized by the electricity, hovering in the charged air between them for a long moment before diving mischievously away. He remembers– he was. Trembling. He's thought about it too long, because now he doesn't wonder, he knows.

He hadn't wanted to take his hand away.

The sudden quiet yanks him back and he realizes Malfoy's not moving. Still steely and resisting under him, but no longer thrashing like a landed fish. "Look–" he tries, not having a ruddy clue what to say next, what to do. "Just. Let's just– at least get off the floor, yeah? If I let you up, we'll just walk away, 'right?" Desperate to get away from the unsettling twist rising in his stomach, and the much more disconcerting ache building elsewhere, he sees only the curt nod of assent. Quite fails to notice the knife edge glint in the eye.

Staggering up onto his cramping legs, he turns quickly away, eager to shove this out of his mind, and he gets the verb he's wishing for, just not how he wanted it: With surprising precision, Malfoy's spun him around and shoved him against the locker, the small iron latch biting into his spine.

You took it. Away from me.

Each angry breath moistens his face. This close, Malfoy's scent – fresh, salty sweat and traces of sandalwood and something- deeply male – are flooding his nose, his– Oh Christ. His open mouth. Fuck. He can actually taste the smell of the looming body on his own tongue. His head's suddenly pounding loudly, and there's a fuzzy noise rising in his ears. On the other side of it, the low voice has picked up poisonous momentum.

...standing up on the broom that time, always been such a sodding show-off. Think you're so much better than everyone. Always hoarding the spotlight so much that no one ever notices– You never notice–

Draco's snagged on something, falters, and unwittingly loosens his grip just a fraction as his mind tries to steer itself back onto course. Harry's years on the pitch have taught him exactly what to do when the opponent's distracted: Take advantage.

His first try for a clutch at Malfoy's vambraced arm fails, the damp leather slipping away from his grasp, but with a grunted effort his second is a success, and he sinks his fingers viciously into unshielded flesh until he feels the bedrock of bone beneath the wiry muscle. A small sound of pain from the corded throat. He could let the sound fuel his fury, or stir empathy. It's an easy decision.

Launching himself away from the wall with a grimace, he grapples the battling body, manages to reverse their positions, narrowly avoiding the kicking legs. From a distance, it might have looked like the turn of dancers in a tango. It isn't a tango. When he slams Draco against the shower room door, he tries to make it hurt as much as he can. Notes with satisfaction the wince the bastard can't hide behind an arrogant veil.

In the furious struggle that follows, there is spit and spite and sweat and he can't hear the growling for the blood roaring in his ears but he feels the silence when the growling stops.

When four hands find fragile trachea at the same moment.

Genuine fear flares visibly in both their eyes. Each scared to discover what the other's capable of. Each scared to discover what he himself is capable of. They both squeeze. Black begins to edge his vision and then– his thigh accidentally presses the lithe legs apart, moves abruptly between them. He feels the solidity of the door beneath his padded knee. He feels Malfoy's–

The body beneath him goes stock still. The whole bloody world goes stock still.

—

The sudden shift's brought them even closer together; he can feel two crazed heartbeats where their uniformed chests are crushed together. Can't tell if it's his own or Malfoy's snorted breaths fogging the lenses of his spectacles. Whatever this is, it's seething, and it's burning a thousand times higher than the spark of it when they touched in the air above the pitch. His jaw aches, but he can't unclench it. The snarling mouth just an inch away from his own. A single drop of saliva shining a corner glistens at him. His fingers relax on the white neck. The smolder of hate firing low in his belly is burning off with every strangled gasp, exposing something beneath it. Something that makes him want. Makes him. Need.

Through the haze and his own slow-turning wheels, the realization was running late, but now it's finally arrived. It's just a syllable, but that "me", razor sharp in its silence, its omission, stabs him. He's pity for a split second, but then he's fury again: How can you fucking say that stings unspoken on his tongue like acid. Never notice him? All he's done for seven damn years is notice Malfoy. Notice and watch. Watch and Stare. Stare and follow. Follow and provoke. Provoke and– Dream of. Twisting anguished in sweaty sheets trying not to remember in the morning. Succeeding. Mostly.

Ron's Devonshire twang barges into his mind: You're becoming obsessed...

That had been easy enough to rationalize over the years but now? Not so easy when his prick was harder than it'd ever been in his entire life. He shifts.

He doesn't– rub. He isn't. Rutting against Draco Malfoy in slow motion as though under Imperio.

Groaning, he lets his hands slide away to the wood on either side of the platinum hair. Groaning, he looks straight into eyes without a trace of grey. Beneath the pupil-blown gaze, the mouth a stark O of frozen shock, pink tongue just visible in shadow behind slick white teeth. It's so near, so close, and he wants to– Oh Merlin.

He wants to lick it.

Wants to slide his own across its wetness. He wants, so tightly that he can't bear it, and the incoherent sound he makes doesn't have a name, but that's fine, because Malfoy seems to understand it anyway, closing the thrumming inch between them, and when he thrusts angrily into his mouth, Harry groggily wonders if perhaps it was Parsel he'd slipped into, because Draco's tongue is pure snake, muscular and graceful, strong and gliding. He opens to it. Opens and opens and opens, and he knows it's a Wronski Feint because it feels exactly like falling, feels just like that heart-stopping dive on a Firebolt, the ground racing up, his gut twisting. Doesn't know just what it is the opponent's trying to dare him into, what trick, what diversion.

Whatever it is, it's working, because his body's stopped listening to his brain and he pushes his hips, slowly, hard, pressing the ones beneath him tightly against the door. The grunt he gets in response, so forceful it knocks their teeth together, hits him like a bludger, and his shivering graduates to shaking. The wire rim catches his hair as the pale hand snatches. It hurts. He likes it. Hears the glass crack before the clatter. It's a moment before he realizes exactly what that means.

The twitch when he does wets his navel.

It makes him stumble, and there's only one direction to fall: Closer to Malfoy. Deeper in. The fingers digging painfully into his flesh don't matter. The confusion in his head doesn't matter. Nothing matters except the warmwethappeningthing. He doesn't understand how– doesn't care how– he's doing this to him using only his mouth. Just knows it can't stop. Must never stop. Wet and sure and yes and claiming and greed like fire. More the only word in his head, and that's exactly what Malfoy gives him, more than he can bear and still it's not enough. His wordless moan vibrates their swelling lips and now he can't stop moaning and doesn't try, can't try. Opens and opens. Falls and falls as Draco owns him with his mouth, and– Fuck. He's going to– it's suddenly there, knotting at the base of his cock, that unmistakable vortex, and he'll be damned if he's going to let Draco bloody Malfoy make him come in his trousers just by snogging him.

Struggling for leverage, he manages to get his gloved hand under the green tunic, grasps at the writhing muscles, needs more. The tight fit of the jodhpurs make a comfortable angle difficult, and he can't really feel Malfoy's cock through the fabric of his glove, but the way his grip's made him hurl his head back with a heedless slam into the wood is brilliant. Onyx eyes open on him, glare, before rushing back towards him. His bottom lip is seized between wolf-like teeth before he even registers that the slim hand's found him in one confident motion. The expensive dragonhide gloves lying strewn on the hall floor don't realize how much they helped by driving Draco to strip them off in a fury as he'd stormed after The Boy Who Won: Bare hands are so much more dexterous. When the tapered fingertip nudges beneath foreskin, Harry wants to die.

Clenching his eyelids tight as he can, he thrusts up once into the torturing hand before pulling away, claws at the slim waist, trying to tear the sturdy fabric of Malfoy's trousers. Unwilling to take both hands off the radiating body, he rips one glove off with his teeth, then the other. It doesn't help; the buttons still elude him. The frustration rises like a hurricane and he grinds: His jaw, his hips. Gets a growl in return, the pinned body arching against him, and if he can't feel skin right now he's not going to survive. The hard shake of his head doesn't do much to clarify the blaze where his mind used to be, and the only word he can think clearly is clothes. With that dubious focus he manages a shaky evanesco.

—

And why wouldn't they both gasp in unison, surprised? Harry knew it was coming, but nothing could have prepared him for this, this sensation of every inch of Malfoy's bare skin suddenly touching every inch of his own. He'd shoved hard against him as he murmured the incantation, like a castaway clinging desperately to a raft, and that'd closed any remaining gaps. The other side of the spell finds them pressed tightly together from neck to ankle. It's too much. Too much to feel all at once. He knows with the same accuracy as a Legilimens that Draco's mind is reeling and awestruck right where his is: The terrain of them. The soft places meeting. The rough places meeting. The. Oh. Gods.

The warm nest of their pelvic bones where the vanished fabric's left them snugly pressed in full contact, from tightening bollocks all the way to leaking tips. He can't– The trapped heat of it, and. He can feel. Draco's pulse in the vein of his cock, beating right against his own. They both know not to rock into it, both know not to move, not at this moment. The same choked groan burns both of their throats. The same violent quivering seizes their muscles where the firm bellies are pressed hard together. It's worse, so much worse, than a breath-stealing punch. His eyelashes flutter, stomach lurching, and he leans his soaked forehead against the one in front of him for balance. Notices dizzily that Draco's gasping breath is identical in rhythm to his own. Notices confusedly that the padding's still strapped on them; realizes that in his blind haste to vanish their clothes, he's cocked up the spell. A bloody brilliant error, he discovers a split second later, as the rough leather of wrist and shin gauntlet guarding pureblood flesh happen to brush against his bare skin at the same moment.

His desperate moan doesn't go unnoticed, and Draco's not one to let a weakness go unexploited. Wicked arrogance animating his flushed face, he drags his leather-clad wrist with slow deliberation down Harry's bare back, smirking a small hum of pleasure when he sees the agony of need it causes. Not so tough are you now, Potter? he drawls against the slick skin of his throat, emphasizing his point with a small, torturous lift of his hips that makes Harry bite down in shock, catching the edge of his tongue painfully between his teeth. There's a light bruise, one he didn't make, on Malfoy's arm, in the same place he'd had one on his own many times; Chaser's elbows always seem to find that precise spot. He reaches to press on it, hard. Brutally.

Doesn't know why he decides not to, doesn't know why he instead brushes an outline around it gently with his fingertips. It softens Draco's face and roughens his breath. Harry looks into his eyes. Slowly traces the line of bicep that flows like a tight river in the porcelain arm. The curve is perfect under his fingers and he retraces his way back to perfect white shoulder, wants to put his mouth there and doesn't hesitate. It's kissing or it's tasting or it's laving, he's not sure which and doesn't care; from the gasping reverberating against his ear, he's sure Malfoy doesn't care either. All he knows is that his mouth is open and alive, hungry and seeking: Along angular shoulder, down limber arms, across sleek plane of chest. Crave. He finally understands the word. He laps at a body that's like food, salty and sweet and satiating, his hands gliding up ridged ribcage, through the blonde-fuzzed hollows under the shapely arms and back again. His touch raises goosebumps on the fair skin. When he tries to smooth them down with his tongue, he thinks he hears a dream-like Oh above him.

It's the drag of teeth across stiff nipple that rips them both out of the languid daze of it: Draco bucking up violently with a mewl; Harry starting gaspingly at the sensation of Malfoy's cock suddenly smearing his abdomen with pre-cum. Again, then, because he likes this bucking and this wetness and the agonized sound, wants to hear it repeated so this time after he scrapes, he sucks, pulling the tawny flesh into his mouth and pressing it tightly against his tongue. Feels the body under his hands shake and the small wetness again but doesn't get the sound he wanted. Gets instead a quiet Fucking Potter. The tone is unreadable. Always have to. Win.

He bites down.

In revenge or in lust isn't clear to either of them, but Draco makes the sound.

—

Rising away from the swelling pebble of wounded flesh, he levels his eyes at the glittering ones he's been glaring into passionately for years. Afraid of a little competition, Malfoy? He'd meant for the words to be angry. Sarcastic. The breathlessness ruins his plan. They sound seductive instead. What he gets in return drips with the same edge of thick lust.

Fame's gone to your head, golden boy. I don't think you've got what it takes. I don't think you're any match

for me.

Draco's still the one against the wall, but Harry's suddenly the one on the ropes. The ruthless arms crush him immobilized and Malfoy wastes no time in pushing pleasure right to pain, pinning Harry's cock between them and thrusting too hard and too fast. When the leather of the vambrace had drifted across his back, he had shivered; now that Draco's pressing it hard, trying to scratch, to break skin, he's moaning like a dying man. The sound disappears into the imperious mouth. Too raw. The friction on his cock is too raw and he tries to shift away from the relentless hips. Gripping hands keep him trapped. It's draining all the strength from his legs. There are white pinprick stars in the dark behind his eyelids, but he can't twist away, tries again, fails again. The hand seizing into his hair only makes his mouth open wider, gives the suffocating tongue more ground. The hard plane of abdomen pushes angrily at him like a shove.

Like a challenge.

It infuriates him, the want. Not the fact that it's Potter, or at least, not entirely, just– the sheer power of it. He's angry at it– he's angry at the desire itself. Because it's wrong, because he doesn't want to feel it? Or just because it's so– total? So absolute and overwhelming, like something tearing him away, obliterating him? He wants to hurt it, crush it, for the way it's crushing him, but want isn't a foe that can be wrestled so he'll have to settle for Harry. He captures a fistful of the black strands and pulls until the wet lips part even wider in pain. Blocks his breathing with his tongue. Against the body struggling to escape, he shoves angrily, like a challenge.

Like a dare.

That Harry takes. Takes as hard and heedless as he's suddenly taking Draco's leather-clad wrists and slamming them above his head, the yielding snap of the bottom buckle deliciously obscene echoing across the tiles. Oh, Malfoy says. Not dream-like this time. Shuddering, this time. I knew you'd be.. like this.. so.. but whatever was coming next dies away inside the bruise-dusted throat because Harry's shut him up. The smooth patch of skin revealed under the arm guard's sprung clasp rises red in the shape of his teeth. Draco's mouth drops open in surprise and Harry doesn't waste the opportunity. His tongue is furious and perfect, dipping and turning as deftly as his body does in the air of the pitch.

Draco slacks abruptly against him, but it's nothing like the way he did on the floor. Experimentally, Harry moves his tongue again in the same rough way, gets the same result, and now he wants to see, so he looks. Heavy-lidded, panting. Drenched, dazed. Melting in his hold like hot wax, and the bliss coming off him so thick it's a scent. He looks– unbearable, this way. He's– he's fucking beautiful is what, and Harry can't even begin to wrap his mind around that concept, so he looks away, looks down, and that's not much more tolerable, the sight of their jostling legs, the shin guards dark with their mingled sweat. Instinctively, he curls his fingers into Draco's where they're pinned against the door above the soft blonde disarray, drags his eyes back up to the disorientingly unguarded gaze. They breathe, together, for a long moment. Rock, together, for a long moment. He opens his lips lightly against Draco's. The softness, the slowness of this new kind of kiss is breaking him like glass. They don't enter each other's mouths. The long fingers tighten painfully in his. Their breath is neither soft nor slow. He doesn't think he can stand the sensation of his inner thigh sliding so silkily along its rival's. Knows he can't stand the rest of it. Doesn't know he's about to not be standing at all.

Down. The tone is unmistakable, and Harry's eyes flare stubbornly, but he pulls drunkenly away from the hypnotic embrace and begins to drop to a kneel, noting as he glances down that Draco's prick looks like it actually hurts, red quickly going to purple, the skin so tauit's shining. He's more hungry for the hard flesh than he's ever been for anything. Wants to swallow it and never stop. Saliva floods his mouth.

He doesn't have time to realize he's made a mistake before Draco's already turned him swiftly, pressing into the back of his knee so that it gives way, sending him landing hard on the wet tile, hands and knees. He's grateful for the padding.

Before he can adjust to the position, the sure hands are on him, keeping him from rising or turning. Draco's thumbs fit perfectly into the dip of his lower back. The touch makes him shiver, and his bruised lips fall open but no sound comes out. They're rougher than he'd have guessed; he can feel the small calluses. But why wouldn't they be– aren't his own? Malfoy's hands are elegant and well groomed, but he's an athlete, just like Harry. He wishes he would move them - stroke, drag, or even scrapeinto his skin. But he's not. He's just resting his hands firmly in the curve of his back. They feel like a key made expressly for his body. Tell him that you noticed, he thinks suddenly. Tell him you noticed him every day. Everywhere. Potions class. The pitch. How well he handles a broom, how smart, how– But he can't. He tries, but all that comes out is a crackled "I". Swallows dryly, tries again, but now he feels the slight tremor in the fingertips, can feel him. Shaking. And that's not helping, not helping at all, because he's shaking too, feels sick, fevered. He groans, and that's enough to stir the lingering hands.

He hears the ragged 'o' in the accio but nothing more. He doesn't need to, he knows what's being summoned. He knows– what's about to happen. He's afraid for a moment, and then the oil is sliding.

Just not where he'd expected.

It's soothing, running down his spine, and his wrought iron shoulders relax, some of the high wire tension falling away. The liquid's pooling in the concave warmed by the calloused thumbs, and when a tiny rivulet escapes to slip over the curve of his hip, Malfoy catches it, smoothing it firmly up the rippled plane of his side with the whole flat of his palm. He hears himself wail. Smally, brokenly. Swallows and swallows and still he can't even his breath, waterfall of sweat down his face and he's panting like– like an animal. He can hear it, in the quietly echoing room. His cheeks burn.

The shame doesn't have time to linger and the panting becomes moaning as Malfoy's fingers trace a swath through the small lake of thick athletic massage oil. Oh. It feels so– he can't– and as the fingers dragging teasingly through the slickness finally move down into the cleft of his arse, he's grateful for the other hand, hard on his hip, steadying him. The words I love you suddenly, absurdly, appear in his mind, and he laughs, a sound more like a strangled bark. It feels exactly like madness.

Two. Whatever part of his mind is still capable of registering such things notes that it's two slim fingers shoved into him suddenly. When the other bony hand reaches into his hair, there's no part of it left to take note. The groans get stuck in his throat, in its taut angle: Malfoy's got a fistful of his ransacked mane again and is pulling, hard, making his neck bend sharply backward. He tries to say Yes and More, but the words get stuck, too, there in the arc of his now pained neck, so he says more with his body, shoving backwards eagerly onto the fierce fingers. Draco makes an angry sound, adjusts his angle and jabs, hitting something that makes him beg for it again. Please. Draco refuses, and he mewls, too sick with want to be ashamed that he's begging. Please. Draws the word out into a long, hiccoughed series of syllables. For one delirious moment, he thinks he's going to get what he needs: The ruthless grip on his hair disappears, moving to seize his hip, and he sighs with relief, prepares for the twist, for the star-exploding jab again of the cunning hand inside him, but then it. Isn't.

It's gone.

The sudden emptiness is like a blow, and he sobs before he can stop himself. Craning his neck awkwardly around, he sees what looks deceptively like a softly glowing angel: Without the familiar glass to sharpen his focus, the edges are vague, the light suffusing in flecks on the bright skin. It's blurry, but what he sees is enough, more than enough. The long body, more fit than anyone probably suspects; the contrast of the dark gear against the pale skin so arousing it sends his hand irresistibly to his prick. He doesn't see a halo.

Draco's just standing there, staring down at him displayed on his hands and knees, breathing like he's run a race. The voice is glacial. Do it again. Oh god no. Oh god yes. Malfoy wants to watch him pull at his agonized cock.

Wants to stand above him and watch him wanking on the floor on his hands and knees.

The shocked blink only pulls more salty sweat into his eyes and there's. Static. Just blizzardnoise in his head, but he feels Malfoy staring at him, feels him waiting, so he reaches, every muscle in the wrong direction, his left arm shaking already as he tries to support himself while the other– Please. Anything. I'll do anything, just. Please– His hand tugging, gripping, makes his knees move farther apart: Past a certain threshold of need, the body itself will beg. He doesn't care, not anymore, what he must look like, like this, down on all fours like a beast, his spread arse– he's so. Exposed. He can feel the air against his –oh god. He turns away, unable to continue looking him in the face, even half blind as he is at the moment. Pulls punishingly and thumbs the slit with a choking sound before dropping his hand back to the slippery tile. Doesn't know where the thought comes from, and feels nothing but shame: He could– could he reach that far, like this? His own fingers. And he'd spread his legs even wider while he did it. Slowly, thick with the oil. Two fingers. Maybe even– three. Looking Malfoy straight in the eyes with every stretching stroke. Doesn't know where the thought came from, and feels nothing but desire. He closes his eyes just in time for his cock and hole to twitch simultaneously, sending a hopeless sound to this throat.

"Please," he croaks.

His plea is quiet, and so are the answering sounds behind him: A soft creak of leather, a small groan. He startles like a spooked centaur at the sensation of the front of Draco's thighs suddenly pressed against the back of his own. The strong hand glides up his oiled back, curls possessively against the slope of thick shoulder, the long fingers reaching all the way to his clavicle. They dig in there, hook against the bone. He has one dizzying second to realize it's as a handhold before the words slice through his haze.

"Brace yourself, Potter."

He realizes too late that he should've taken a breath. The creak of leather was soft, and the thighs against him smooth but the single angry thrust that's fully buried Draco inside him all at once is neither of those. The ring on the gripping hand scrapes the skin over his collarbone. Breathe he thinks, and this time he manages to, just as the entire inside of his body is suddenly being pulled away, out, because Malfoy's ripped the whole length of his cock out of him with the same viciousness as he entered. He makes a sound which is ignored or unheard, because now he's slamming back into him.

And now he's not stopping.

Punctuating each harsh thrust with a growled Hate. You. And it sounds like he means it until it doesn't, and then it becomes I– Fuck. Fuck., but not for long: As he shoves and shoves, gripping, pounding, driving into him as though he wanted to turn them into one body, one person, the tone of fury begins to leave his scraped voice. Words yield to mangled sounds. The last clear one he hears is Harry, muffled against his jaw as the drenched body drapes heavily, suddenly, against him. It sounds like pure pain. The snowy head buries itself in the curve of his neck and rubs at him in what seems like anguish. Harry. He wishes he could reach up, stroke it, turn softly toward the wet mouth, caress the clenching jaw, but he can't, not with Draco's weight on him, and now not without it, because he's pulled away, back to upright, too far away to reach. The grip of the fingertips under clavicle still firm, but the other hand sliding now like something sea-tossed on his hip. The shoves just as powerful but no longer rhythmic. Draco's steadily devolving, but something's moving the opposite direction in Harry's mind, a puzzle becoming clearer the deeper he falls into the place Malfoy's taking them.

The thought's both sharp and blurry, and how something can be both haze and painfully clear all at the same time he's not sure, but it is, and he sees it, feels it, burning through his skin, pooling deep inside him, in his gut, in his chest, at the base of his cock and he doesn't know what to call it so at the moment it's just Draco's name, dragged painfully out of his raw throat, and then it's Fuck and Harder and Hate and Don't and I and the realization's a bright flare under his heavy eyelids, a flash like the distant lightning, white and jagged through the clouds, when his hand had landed between the broomstick-straddling thighs, and he's almost there, he can see it, this thing between them, understands, finally, what it is, and he wants to say it but Draco's howling, nothing muffled or muted – a sheer, open-throated cry that doesn't waver as he comes, fingernails buried in skin, cock buried in Harry and he only just manages to stammer it out as he follows him into orgasm, pushing it across his lips with the last shred of his strength a split second before contraction and screaming seize him and the ropy pulses hit the floor.

Hate. I don't. I.

It's us.

Certain that Draco's not heard him in the chaos, he yields to the cutting agony of fatigue in the muscles of his arms, lets himself go to collapse forward, tile and water be damned. He registers the unexpected hover before he does the hand that's caught him, the long fingers splayed against his sternum, gently lifting him back against gravity. Back towards Draco, where he lands, slick back to slick chest, gasping as Draco's still half-hard prick slips too quickly out of him. Equal parts pleasure and pain. For the first time in his life, the phrase makes sense to him.

As he collapses dazed against the warm body behind him, he's certain of only two things: His wet hair dripping cool water on his flushed face feels brilliant.

And he never wants to be anywhere but here ever again.

Dropping his head back exhausted against the lean chest, he shivers with a tiny thrill at the sight of the leather wrist guard against his own thigh where Draco's arm is resting, palm-up, damp and tranquil. Moving to twine his nub-nailed fingers into the manicured ones, he catches a glimpse of the thin red welt of rawness where the gauntlet's edge is rubbing the bare white skin, and instead reaches to unclasp the remaining buckle. Fumbling unsuccessfully at the slippery metal, he thinks wryly how helpful it would have been if they'd been wearing protective gear all these years. All those blows landed wouldn't have hurt so much. Or caused so much. Damage.

And they had wounded each other. Over and over. Almost. Gleefully. How could– whatever this is–possibly work? And what the bloody hell is it, anyway? It'd seemed clear enough to him a moment ago, but now it's all muddled together, lust and anger and this– this new feeling that makes him want to. Stay. And. Run his fingertip over the delicately curved mouth. Watch a relaxed smile bloom there under his touch. His enemy. His not enemy. He doesn't know which, but he does know, with gutting certainty and as he always has, that he can't do without him. But. He might have to. Because how could they possibly–

Focused on the sudden ache in his chest, he fails to notice how audible the anxious sigh that escapes him is. Doesn't fail to notice the intimate sensation of Draco's ribcage expanding gently on an inhale against his back as he whispers softly– something like tenderly, he realizes with a start.

"Alright there, Scarhead?"

The sheer– Oh. It's. Christ, it's love in the voice. The quiet acknowledgment of everything. Apology. Forgiveness. The offering of something. It's like a benediction, and Harry's throat closes sharply. Wants to laugh with relief at the complete transformation of the former taunt. Wants to punch him for the original. Wants to run away from what it makes him feel. Wants to run toward it. Clogged on emotion, he can't reply, and a thread of fear creeps up his spine: He imagines malice rising in the silver eye, spite torsioning the haughty mouth as his bumbling silence is interpreted as rejection. Out of long habit, he reflexively tenses for the strike, pulling away just a fraction and stiffening in the supple arms, steeling himself for the next parry in their never-ending duel, but it doesn't come, not this time. Draco just pulls him closer, settling his hand gently over Harry's fidgeting fingers and releasing the buckle effortlessly.

"Don't worry," he murmurs, pressing his lips against wet black hair. "It's us."

—