Author: tigersilver
Title: 'Bares All'
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: H/D
Word Count: 2,700
Warnings: Sex implied; secrecy. Not beta'd.
I continue to procrastinate; care to join me?
HD 'Bares All'
"But…I love you." Harry blurted this into the wealth of forgiving darkness, though he'd not meant to-ever. In a million years. He thrust his hand out blindly after, seeking Draco's thin wrist. Seeking to call them back, but too late. His mouth had run away with him.
"So, er, don't go, alright?"
A quickly caught breath and a sense of utter stillness in the room was the immediate response—the only response for an entirely too long stretch. The body beside him glinted as its elegant lines fell into a cast of carven marble; Harry could make that much out at least, even in the dearth of reflected, refractive light. It was raining outside: torrents of rain, and the half-drowned gaslights on Diagon Alley were struggling to stay lit. The curtains were drawn and there was nothing but their faintly glowing cast-aside wands on the bedside table to betray either of them.
To expose them. Or Harry, rather. Specifically. Of course, there'd been no earthly need to come out with such a earth-shattering thing as this, not now. Not ever. No, as Harry knew for ruddy bare-faced incontrovertible fact and to his own ragged despair, he'd just accomplished his very own species of personal doom all by his lonely, with no help from anyone nor any circumstance acting as deus ex but his own stupid, bleating tongue, curse it.
And his hapless hand, reaching wildly to stay Draco—to keep him present and accessible.
Words—nothing but words, but ever so shattering.
It was mortifying. Harry struggled manfully not to hyperventilate. What he'd admitted could prove a terrible, horrible mistake…or it could not. Only Draco Malfoy knew the answer to that.
"Yet."
Harry prayed silently, something he did seldom—more like never. He prayed fervently to a force inchoate, anything greater than he, who might take pity and look after the likes of fools and mad Wizards. As he was. As he'd be, in the absence of this cold, chilly figure perched on the very bitter edge of the mussed bed.
"I," Draco's voice was low and croaky; he cleared his throat and shifted the lay of his arse upon the thin mattress they were renting by the hour. "Didn't know."
"Yes. Alright."
Harry nodded frantically, blushing scarlet in the dark. He could literally feel Draco staring holes into him, grey eyes like searchlights illuminating his likely gormless expression, his betraying colour, his utter lack of self-protection. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, staving off the cool composed invasion of that gaze, only to blink them open to a visual feast: the swathe of pale hair, pale skin, pale everything that was imminently poised for flight.
Because he was, of course. Driven off, by Harry himself.
Draco remained tethered to Harry's side only by the spin of his wrist bones within the loosely constructed cage of Harry's sticky fingers. He could—and likely would—bolt at the drop of one more ill-considered word. It was an awful prospect to consider. Lowering.
"Well…" Harry mumbled into the stretching silence, ducking his chin to avoid looking too closely at what he knew had to be Draco's expression of complete disbelief—and discomfort. Draco wasn't one for entanglements; Harry was well aware. "Truth is, I didn't want you to—know, that is."
"Why?" The query gave nothing away as to the emotional state of the querent. Harry's only clue concerning Draco's disposition was the sudden sweaty slickness of his smooth skin. It had gone cold and then hot in a matter of seconds, lax and pliant where it lay, but damp and slippery as Harry's own clammy knuckles and palm. Harry held on grimly, nonetheless. "Why not?" Draco pressed, intent.
Yet he asked this as if Harry's reply would mean less than nothing to him, in a manner so incredibly casually curious Harry shuddered, wincing.
"You—er, you," Harry let his words escape the confines of his tight throat and tighter chest only in dribs and drabs, unwilling. He never should've uttered the last few—that was incredibly obvious. But it was too late. "You might not—probably don't—care." He gulped, eyes cast down upon the darker shadows that lay between them, the heap of tumbled coverlet and sheet, where he maintained his death grip on Draco's elegant joint. "I mean, do you?"
And why would he, logically?
Harry pondered the question, clamping his lips together to prevent additional destruction, nibbling nervously upon the lower one when he forgot, overwhelmed by the sheer horror of awaiting Draco's response.
Why ever should he? Love Harry? Harry hadn't meant to, either, but that hadn't stopped him. Why would Draco?
"If this 'love' you speak of, er." Draco sounded as though his windpipe had rusted shut. Was choked, clogged; not recently used, that was. "Is merely lust—then what—or maybe the better question is why—?"
"No!" It wasn't. Harry was familiar with lust. With want and fancies and sexually-based attraction. Certainly all of these were present, right here in this room they shared the cost of renting every other night, like bloody clockwork. "No—that's not it."
He was positive it wasn't.
"It's love, alright." He didn't have much experience with the emotion, but nothing else could possibly twist him up like this—no one else alive in the world could induce this sheer panicky feeling that filled him now. Only Draco. Always Draco. "Really, it is."
"Then."
Draco cleared his throat a second time; coughed genteelly when his Adam's apple must've stuck, mid-swallow. He'd gathered himself together, preparing to move in some decisive direction; Harry felt the vibrations through the conduit of the mattress. He tensed, helpless in the near-Stygian darkness that had done nothing useful to muffle ill-conceived confessions.
Harry fought back the rising bile. He was, without doubt, an idiot.
"I should." Draco went on, only to pause for another long moment, till Harry heard the damp papery whisper of his tongue, sliding over lips that were likely as bitten and dry as Harry's own. "Tell you."
"Yes?" Harry asked quickly, lunging upright. He couldn't do this, not curled in a cum-stained heap by his lover's side. Could not lie there, Draco's semen still in him, and await words that would shatter him like so much balsa wood—into splinters of Harry. Horcruxes of Harry, really. Murdered nameless, formless hopes. Foolish daydreams. Thus the prisoner awaited the executioner's axe, he believed. Impatient—eager. Needing closure. "Go on?"
The wrist Harry had pinioned so fiercely turned counterclockwise in his grip and withdrew, tugging carefully away from Harry's clingy fingers. He'd expected as much and much sooner, really. Hadn't thought he could hold on forever. No one stayed forever, after all.
"But we'll still see each other, right?"
Draco's lips remained parted; he licked them again, blinking rapidly and turning abruptly away to stare at the faint outline of ambient light wreathing the sole window. Harry hastened to wedge that assumption into the ever-widening abyss he'd just dug, gathering himself up in a coil and falling into a loosely held-together set of fears by Draco's side. The mattress gave slightly as he settled, hands on lap, a tense bundle of over-exposed bits.
He'd been really very rash. Hadn't he?
"Here, I meant? For, uh, shagging? It won't get in the way, will it? What I said."
Draco—and he was really a difficult, contrary git, even if Harry had realized he was as dependent upon Draco's many flaws and faults as he was upon his cock and his courage and the very occasional warm light that filled those expressive eyes, now and again, as they turned upon him. Now, he snapped his teeth as he twisted his head upon that pale column of neck to confront Harry, the tumbled sheaves of hair shifting across his high furrowed forehead. Regarded Harry most seriously, as if he were a stranger come stumbling into the quiet little room. Or perhaps a stray erumpent, found lurking unsuspected in a dim corner.
"It shouldn't, alright? Really. Not."
Harry groaned. He was mucking up, left and right.
"I mean, I still want you—you're really fit, Draco. That's not changed," he gabbled. "The way you—and we're sort of compatible. I mean, we fit. Our bits."
He pressed the back of a hand to his forehead, which ached suddenly, awfully. His stomach hurt like the dickens. His ears buzzed and he only wished for it to be over with—Draco's inevitable, expected rejection. His own glaring asininity.
Of course this wasn't proceeding well, but then he'd not planned it out, either. He'd only just spewed out the words he'd been thinking and damn the consequences. Thus, hearts were broken unnecessarily, Harry knew. He should've known better by now, at least.
"Shut up." Draco's words, when they started up again, were razor-sharp and cutting. "You git."
Harry clamped his traitorous mouth into a thin anxious line without a second thought. Here it came, he was certain—the death knell.
"You are a git and sometimes I really, truly hate you, Potter." Draco paused to swallow, the strangled sound loud in the ringing silence that filled Harry's ears. One of his hands came to cover Harry's, lacing tightly into the forlorn fingers that lay half-curled and abandoned from before. "You drive me spare; I never know what start you'll get up to next." He was clearly irritated with Harry's very existence; the humid sex-ridden air between them sizzled with it. The grip abruptly changed to punishing. "But I want you, all of the damned time, and I think of you when I can't see you. You're my sickness—I can't be shed of you."
Draco dragged in a deep gasping breath. He scowled—Harry could almost see the full frightening extent of it, even in the dark.
"And I don't care to. I won't allow it. You're not permitted to leave me, Potter. Never."
"I," Harry squeaked, jumping where he sat, "wasn't—ever—couldn't bear—really, no!"
"I said, shut up!" Draco was fierce and belligerent. He turned his entire torso, bearing down upon his companion. Harry's crushed hand was deftly transferred to Draco's free one; the arm wrapped 'round his shoulders shifted abruptly, drawing the whole of Harry tight up against a naked chest that heaved, incidentally compressing his one nostril with every other thud. "Shut up and listen!"
"Ngh!" Harry shivered, even as he burnt to shamed ashes. This was awful; he resolved never to love anyone again—certainly never to admit it.
"You're an idiot, Potter," Draco derided acidly, every inch superiour. "You don't just come out with things like that—did no one ever tell you?"
Harry went to shake his head—they hadn't, actually. No one had, but then he'd not thought he could be such a blithering arse as to confess his love to his own worst enemy. His scalp was gripped mid-motion, the arm slipping up from his hunching shoulders and its elbow clamping harsh about his neck, stymieing him even as he thought to yank himself away. He grimaced, even as Draco pressed a totally unexpected hot kiss to his hairline, searing lips firm and taut, landing right above his faded scar and dwelling long. And then jiggled him about roughly, barking out a spate of harsh words all the while.
They barely made sense to Harry; took ages to resolve into concepts he could follow.
"You're so wide open and it's a sin, really. Likely I shouldn't take advantage, Potter—but that's not stopping me, alright?" Draco's usual voice had transformed into a weird combination of shaky and determined; it wobbled, which was unheard of. "You've sealed your fate, just now;" it dropped abruptly to a low, gritty rumble, menacing Harry if by implication of dire endings. "I hope you do know that at least, though it'll do you no good, Potter. Not a whit!"
"What?"
"I said to listen, Potter!"
He was forced back down upon the creaking mattress, lips parted pointlessly in nebulous question, eyes seeking any light at all that might shed some upon this complete and utter reversal of fortunes.
And then he and his bewildered mouth were covered firmly by long limbs and wide shoulders, white hands and teeth, and all devoured.
With gusto.
Breathless and needy, the hot blood coursing through every swollen capillary, Harry surged up mindlessly to meet his chosen match—the single solitary Wizard who slotted into his every gap and crack perfectly, filling them to perfection, seamless and smoothed over. His reluctant love—his beloved nemesis.
Flailing, scrabbling to manage a better grip, to lay himself wide, he sought only to imprint himself permanently on those especial bones, that specific skin, that extraordinarily private blend of lingering lime-sandalwood scent. He'd strive to become a part of it—he'd be stuck to Draco Malfoy on a forever basis.
"You're an unmitigated arse," Draco alternatively groaned and snogged and talked with alacrity, never ceasing the flow of any. "You have not a bloody clue—no sense at all," he informed his captive. "To even think! I'm ashamed of you, I am—you stupid, speccy git! Don't you ever use that shaggy head of yours for anything other than yapping nonsense?"
"What?" Puzzled and awed, Harry twisted his jaw, wrenching himself away from Draco's overbearing, incredibly mobile mouth. Wasn't this all exactly what he'd dreamt of? Well, maybe not the verbal abuse aspect of it, but the kisses—the tacit acceptance? What could possibly be bad about this? "What's—why're you? I really don't under—"
"Three fucking lousy little words, Potter, and you do me in, just like that," Draco growled, his boney hips budging insistently at Harry's thighs, forcing them to part. "Fucking derail all my good intentions—turn me bloody inside out. I do hate you for it, Harry—never doubt it. I hate you so, so much—always have."
"Oh, but—you." Harry glared up at the glittering gaze above him, the one that sought to strip him down to rag-and bone; remove every pretention. Not that he had any left, after Draco. "You just said—didn't you? Why are you? I mean. What?"
Of all the possible outcomes imaginable, Harry had not expected this one. Oh, no—not.
"Don't play the fool, Harry," Draco muttered, biting at Harry's bared earlobe. His was a dark, nasty growl, one that sent chills straight up Harry's spine. "You know as well as I do what you've gone and done just now. You've changed everything. Everything, idiot."
"Did—did I?" Harry turned back abruptly so their noses banged together. He blinked furiously at both the minor pain and the major bewilderment that swamped him. "Look, er—what exactly are you saying here, Draco? You don't mind? That's it?"
"Fool—fool—git!" Draco snarled darkly, glaring for all he was worth. "This means the papers and confronting my parents and your bloody interfering mates and everyone we know—did you even think, Potter? About what you were doing, putting me on the spot? I could kill you now, you know, and the court would acquit me. Crime of passion, they'd call it, and I'd go scot-free!"
"Erm," Harry wrenched his arms out from where they'd been trapped by Draco's sharp elbows. Very carefully he laid a palm on either side of Draco's bobbing head, his fingertips entangling with the silky strands that tufted out between them. The git was nipping at him with every other word. It stung but also felt contrarily marvellous—and his cock was so hard he was dizzy with it—as was Draco's—but this absolutely had to be cleared up first.
Had to be, or he'd end up as spare as Draco claimed he was. Or as stupid.
"Draco Malfoy," he said as gently and calmly as he could, tracking and finally capturing the darting, brilliant gaze with his own intent one. "Draco, explain yourself. Why haven't you gone, already? What are you really saying to me?"
"Oh, gawds almighty, you really are this dense, aren't you?"
The git's question had to be rhetorical; Harry waited patiently, ignoring the bait.
Draco blinked at him for another endless second and then cast down his glinting eyes, focusing furiously on the hollow at Harry's throat, where his pulse beat like a frightened bird.
"Idiot, it's mutual. That's all."
"Mutual?"
"Yes! Now help me think, stupid. We need a plan. The fallout's likely to be fucking monstrous."
Harry shrugged. He wasn't so sure of that. After all, he'd just dropped the other boot—well, more like an entire cobbler's shop—and nothing too terrible had happened.
Mutual, huh? Harry liked the sound of that, very much.
"So?" he asked, shrugging again. "I say we wing it. Works for me."
Finite