Quench
Ship: Dramione
Song: You Only Live Once, The Strokes
Words: 298
Rating: K
Warnings: implied PTSD
Most of the time, Draco Malfoy felt like he was drowning.
He saw the world through a thick haze of moving water. He felt the weight of it pushing in on him, and he knew it would be a fatal mistake to breathe. But his lungs threatened to burst from lack of oxygen, his veins pulsing deeply within his skin.
Even though The Dark Lord was well and truly destroyed, Draco felt the same blunt fear for his life, for his way of life, for his family, for his everything. He lived with constant worry that he would lose everything — despite the fact he couldn't name more than a few things still important to him.
He moved through life like the dead, unsure of how to continue on like he hadn't committed atrocities and watched as worse was done to humanity by others, that he stood by their sides while they did it.
Draco felt the imprint of every life he'd taken with his own magic, every child's innocence he had stolen, every crime he'd condoned by the mere act of being present.
Being with Hermione Granger was quite literally a breath of fresh air. It was safe to breathe when she was near. Her supple skin quenched his unending thirst, the curves of her body offered sanctuary from his incessantly dark mind. A wave of curly brown locks crashed along her back, inviting him closer, faster, harder.
He was a beggar at the altar of her body, an unworthy miscreant seeking redemption in the pureness of her soul.
She cleansed him with her empathetic smile and the love shining through her molten chocolate colored eyes.
And while he knew he deserved none of this peace, he would drink from her for as long as she allowed.
