"Stop being so damn selfish!" his voice hitches the tiniest bit and Harry yearns to have his throat sound raw again.
It's not noticeable unless you're looking for it, which he was, but the shoulders stiffened and the steps across the room paused for a nano-second, disrupting the rhythm of drumbeats, heartbeats.
Gently, gracefully, a pale hand is laid over a brass doorknob. Slowly the body turns. Sinew and muscle dancing around each other, blood easing the way as lubricant between the two great forces, and Draco's facing him.
Harry might have been satisfied had it not been for the disturbing way the lips twisted to mock him.
The eyes were hard, indignant, and resigned.
"Perhaps you should simply accept that I'm a selfish person, Potter," the emphasis on selfish sparked something.
He was being selfish. He had to be, he couldn't give in, couldn't give this one thing up.
Pale fingers tightening to gain leverage over the shaped and battered metal
He couldn't leave just after starting this. It wasn't fair, not to him and not to Harry. The injustice of it all was a burning cancer in Harry's lungs and like potassium coating his muscles after a long run, tightening.
The brass turned, the door clicked. Carved wood began to move obediently on it's oiled hinges.
No, he better not leave. He wasn't allowed to! He couldn't do this to Harry!
It wasn't like watching someone else do it; he was in his own body. It wasn't an out of body experience or an involuntary muscle spasm. There was no fear of being out of control or unable to stop himself.
The frightening part was that he wanted this, such an emotion became fact somewhere in the back of his mind as he punched Draco, became truth. His fist hit with a familiar squelch and crunch. His hands knowing instinctively where to place themselves to best restrain the body against the wall.
The frightening part was that he didn't care, as he watched the back of Draco's head crack and start to bleed against the white wall. Rivulest of dark tears, dripping down.
"You can't leave!" some of Harry's spit flew out and landed on Draco's cheek. He could see it there, he didn't care.
"I have to."
Harry stared at that face. That calm, unreachable face. Red tears sliding down wallpaper, staining satin hair.
Why?
His hands are clenching reflexively. He removes them and watches as the white fingerprints fade into dark pink marks on the pale flesh. They'll be bruises later.
He doesn't care.
His knuckles hurt. Draco's cheek is already begun to swell and redden. Bruises, recent and old, decorate the delicate skin revealed upon Draco's neck and collar bone. They're mostly fingerprints.
Harry knows there are more marks scattered over the pale body, hidden from him. Some are old and yellow, some are darkly fresh and tender.
Harry doesn't care.
He decides he distains clothing…hiding the marks from him. Harry thinks Draco looks beautiful with all the stains upon his skin. Marking him for what he is, who he belongs to.
Breath surges through and he forces it out his nose. His eyes, glaring and accusing rise to meet shining counterparts.
The silver glare cut like the knife it was meant to be, and the answer is clear.
This is why