A/N: Normal warnings and such. Not beta'd. Rated probably PG-13... nothing too serious.
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The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
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"Here's the thing. I know you, I know what you're like and I'm kind of tired of this shit. What's going to happen to you now the war's over? I don't know. I'm a little scared, too, but here's the thing. I'm really fucking glad it is over," Draco said, turning to stare up at the ceiling.
"I don't want to face it," his companion informed him.
Draco snorted. "Of course you don't. Honestly, it'd be all right with me if you stayed in this bed with me forever, but is that what you really want?"
His companion sighed and Draco imagined the frown fitting over his features. The were silent for a moment.
"You wouldn't mind if I stayed here with you forever?"
Draco's mind backpedaled. Had he really said that? "I... I suppose I'd learn to live with it."
His lover laughed. "Do you love me?"
"What the hell kind of question is that?" Draco asked, incensed.
The lanky man pulled himself up on to his elbows to stare at Draco. With the moonlight flooding in through the open window, Draco could make out the silhouette and he imagined the smoldering eyes boring into his.
"Do you love me?" The vision asked again.
Draco felt a litany of things all at once. Fear was the strongest emotion he could muster. "Is this one of your jokes?"
There was a very long, very pregnant pause. Draco was in agony as the silence permeated the air around them and made him tense.
His companion caved first. "Alright, I know this perhaps wasn't a good thing to say but just two minutes ago, as I'm lying next to you and we've just had what must be the most amazing sex known to mankind, I start thinking about my life, right?"
"Mmhmm," Draco responded, not really sure where this was all headed.
"I'm thinking of the things I want. You came up, obviously. For a split second, I thought of life without you. For that one tenth of a second, I felt all the anxiety and longing and heartache that my eighteen-year-old post-coital body could muster. And it hit me." He stopped. Draco held his breath.
He was near asphyxiated by the time he realized his companion would not be responding. "And?" Draco gasped.
"Do you love me?" His lover asked again, this time his voice holding more amusement than apprehension.
Draco refused to speak. They fell into another tense silence.
"Alright, this is how I'm going to handle this. I'm going to assume because of your silence that the answer is yes," his companion said, "because you wouldn't have had a problem saying no. This is just my assumption, the answer could be no and you don't want to say because you think I won't have sex with you anymore... in which case, you're probably right, because I am... desperately in love with you, Draco Malfoy. You have become the only thing worthwhile in my life. Which is pretty amazing since most of the time I've known you, you've been an absolute prat."
Draco went from unwilling to speak to unable.
His lover sighed. "I should have thought this through. Maybe gone home, thought about it, thrown myself out of a window and only tell you if I survived."
Draco's lips curled into a smile.
"You could make this easier, any minute now, you could say, I love you, I always have, I always will."
"I haven't always," Draco said finally.
His lover whooped in triumph. "But you are saying you do now?"
Draco shook his head. "But that's not what I said."
"But you never say much, I'm always left having to deduce from your silence what you are thinking. Lets take for an example," he ran a slender finger down Draco's abdomen, "whenever I touch you here, you never say anything, but your heart rate quickens and your eyes roll back and I assume you like it." His hands dipped below Draco's waist. "When I touch you here, your hips always reach up to search for my fingers as they leave your body." Draco found this conversation irresistibly sexy but it was still too soon after mind-blowing sex to really get excited over it.
His lover laid his head to rest on Draco's chest. "Minutes ago, you said I could stay in this bed forever. Why would you say that?"
Draco couldn't resist teasing unruly locks with his fingers. "You give really great head, why wouldn't I tie you to my bedpost and keep you as my love slave?"
"Love Slave," his companion noted. "Not sex slave, love slave."
Draco smiled in spite of himself. "Love is just a synonym for sex, that's all."
"Is it?" His lover smiled into his abdomen, "so if that's all it is, say that you love me. All it'll mean is that you love to have sex with me, right?"
Draco's hand tightened in his lover's hair. "So clever, you are, you were never this clever in school."
His words were greeted by a deep, silky laugh that he felt down to the tip of his toes. Fingers began to trace letters into his skin.
"I swear, if you are spelling 'Property of...' I will just have to kill you now."
Another silky laugh. And then a sigh of contentment and the body on his stilled. "I always wondered, you know, what it would feel like. Love... God, that sounds so cheesy."
It was a near miss, but Draco managed to keep his heart from exploding in his chest. "Yes, very cheesy. Please stop."
The head on his stomach lifted and moved up his body; hands pinned his above his head. "Please say you love me."
Draco didn't need the sun to see those sparkling eyes. He held his resolve. "No."
His lover moaned and dropped his head onto Draco's shoulder. Draco could still smell the sweat and sex on him. "I know I'm not what you always wanted. I'm a Gryffindor and my family's not respectable and really, I know you've always had this thing for..."
"Don't say it," Draco said sharply. "Don't say his name. I care nothing for him. Nothing for anyone except..." he trailed off.
"Me?" The husky voice at his throat asked, hopeful.
"Don't get so excited. I wasn't saying I care a large amount; it could be an amount. It could mean that I care a very small amount. There's no telling." Draco couldn't help it, he was grinning.
"Tomorrow, when it's all over the papers, about Voldemort and everything, the four of us will need to show a united front... to protect you. We've discussed it and Hermione thinks if you and I were open, from the beginning about what we are..."
"What we are," Draco repeated.
"Yes, what we are to each other, then things will be easier for you."
Draco sighed. "And how does Granger feel about what we are, does she love me as well?"
Lips against his shoulder smiled. "She has grown quite fond of you, I think. It came as a shock... I think she may have had things planned out already. Thankfully we're still friends."
Draco nodded. "A united front, then?"
"Yes," the breath at his ear said, "but first, we need to settle one what we are. Now, if you only like me for the sex, then we're maybe lovers, maybe fuck buddies. If I love you and you don't love me, that's some kind of weird unrequited love, pity sex situation. Or we have this last option where I love you and you love me and we're maybe something permanent. Something stable."
"Like marriage?" Draco asked, trying to cover his disgust.
His lover laughed. "Marriage? You and me..." there was a thickness to his voice underneath the supposed mirth, "that's ridiculous."
"Isn't it," Draco said, coolly. He was firmly in a corner. This was more serious than he had earlier expected and required some reflection. Obviously he had not meant to fall in love with any Gryffindor. And if he had, he would have chosen one of better breeding. Possibly not so many freckles.
"You're very quiet," his companion said despondently.
Draco was resigned to the inevitable. "I will never say this in public. I will not say this in defense of our relationship; I will not say this to save my own skin. It goes no further than the four walls of this room. You can't even take them out into the kitchen because they don't belong there. They're for you and me and only on this bed. Quite possibly this is only because it's near midnight and I've already been shagged and I really would like a peaceful nights sleep, but I could possibly... love you."
Silence reigned between the two of them and then a feverish mouth was devouring Draco and the tightness in his chest that had restricted his breathing relented. This wouldn't be so bad, would it? If anything, his relationship with a Weasley would never produce offspring and would save the world from more redheaded children.
