Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine but that's okay, because I get to borrow them for this little ficlet. Plus, the idea for sea glass, a sea cottage, and a first attempt at present tense are mine, so things could be worse.
AN: I'll tell you right now that this is a strange little story and not at all like your typical Harry Potter fanfiction. The characters' names never get mentioned, but I figured any good fan should be able to figure out who I'm talking about and when I'm talking about them. ;) If not, the sea glass collector is Draco and the raven-haired man is, of course, Harry. Please read and review because your feedback is just as good as the money I'm not making from my writing. *grins*
.oOo.
The window is lined with clear bottles, all filled with sea glass that catches the light in their curves and dips that make each piece more unique than the last. Like the man that collects them, they are beautiful in their own way, and have been ground down by the passage of time from sharp edges to smooth lines. There is room for four bottles on the windowsill and they sit side by side, though only two are filled. The rest remain empty for the time being, like their owner must feel sitting in his little cell surrounded by the ocean that he loves and yet is caged by in his prison.
The sight of them hurts his boyfriend's eyes, and he avoids looking at them even though its inconvenient and even though it'd be easier just to take them down. He knows he won't, because sometimes, he has to look and they remind him so painfully of the man he loves that he can't possibly shut them away in some dusty cupboard. Like the man he loves, they deserve to be seen and marveled at instead of imprisoned by the dark. The thought of it still claws at his bones in painful slashes, because he knows that is exactly where the man he loves is.
The raven-haired man keeps track of the days on a little calendar by the sink and counts them one by one until the day of the sea glass collector's release, even though it makes each day stretch on and on into infinity, like the horizon he knows he'll never be able to touch as it sinks below the water that the sea glass collector loves. He can't imagine what it must feel like to be imprisoned by the very thing he needs every day, and the memory of watching him walk along the shore, searching for little bits of smooth brightness in the sand hits the raven-haired man in his chest, threatening to pry him wide open.
They built this little house by the sea together, where they wouldn't have to face the rising tide of people who disapprove, who don't understand, who threaten to engulf them and everything they have. What they have together is far more important than the thoughtless judgments passed on them by people who cannot comprehend what it feels like to constantly be set on fire by a simple look, a simple touch, a simple smile. The ocean doesn't put it out but merely provides a barrier between them and the rest of the world.
But now the raven-haired man is by himself in the little house by the sea and he doesn't know quite what to do with himself. For a year he will be without the man he built the little house with and he's already drank in the scent of him from their pillows and the clothes left behind in the drawers. He's already curled into the empty side of the bed when the night presses in on the kitchen window and the sea glass goes dull… lifeless, all of the things their collector is not. His friends try to draw him out, promising normal nights and dinners with conversations, but he can't face any of them.
The crimes the sea glass collector committed were ones that have nothing to do with the man he is now. The crimes belong to a war that has long since past and made people do things that would never ordinarily do. Family is as good a motive for making mistakes as any other and while the raven-haired man has never really understood, he's long since forgiven while the rest of the world called for retribution, and it is because of them that he cannot sleep at night because the man he loves has been taken somewhere else.
Before he was taken away, the sea glass collector had looked over the bottles, but mostly the empty ones, and talked about plans he'd had to have them filled over the next year. It was the only time the raven-haired man had ever heard that sort of sadness laced in his ordinarily steeled and unyielding voice, and it made him want to pull him away from the window. It made him want to brush over the bleakness with friction from his touch that always seemed to warm the sea glass collector when he is ordinarily so cold.
One day, the raven-haired man chances a glance at the empty bottles and instead of imagining the man he loves imprisoned in the dark, he sees the light past them, beyond the window the sit before. For the first time since they took the sea glass collector, the raven-haired man walks along the beach and searches for what the sea glass collector cannot. He finds the polished pieces of glass that remind him of a man that was once all harsh edges but is now as smooth as the things he collects, and he wishes the rest of the world could see him like he does.
Every day, he walks along the shore looking for the sea glass that the man he loves cannot, and even though each piece reminds him of a touch or a whisper that he won't feel for months still, it's enough to know that he will again one day. He keeps the sea glass that he finds in the bottles by the window until the sea glass collector can come home and finish what he started. Because, like the sea glass, he should be seen and marveled at instead of imprisoned by the dark.