The scent of Harry in the morning, what he found here at his teeth, dribbling down the blanket until he found it within reach, sniffing and breathing as if it was everything he'd ever need — oh, it rivaled the old world when Tom nuzzled and was weak.
Because the tang of pine needles had him quaking beneath the sheets, had him twisting from the collar and fetching through his neck as he nosed down the valleys of this uneven, full bed.
Spilling down the crack and to the crater on his left, where remnants of a forest and an autumn in full-bloom, kissed him on the mouth and then he followed to his doom. And then he rolled because he had to and cascaded into the dirt, and then swallowed to his back as the old world welcomed him.
With musk along his body and rot behind his head: the former, a feast and then the dishes he must've had; the latter, a cigar that at some point he had lit; and all of this soon clouded and filled him to the brink.
Until he was less than what he was and became a snake before he knew it, maybe a viper or a dice or something pointed when he dug. When he burrowed through the floor and found a house within the ground; or as it were, in a blanket and coveted by a cover that had followed Tom from the right when he was led down the crater.
Down the shape, down the warmth, down the bottom of a man fading faster when he breathed and savored where he was.
Because he could never get enough of him — of this and of that: it was obscene how he grounded and festered to that spot, it was ugly how he writhed and tore at this to fit him in, it was violent how he yearned before he followed to where it went. And what hunted for Harry's scent was anything but human; what hungered for a taste was craving for deer as it slithered through the roots and down the burrows of where it were.
Occasionally, darting up and then mouthing at the air. Squinting, though it couldn't, and then it nibbled upon a lead. Something solid and alive — and so alive, it was near — had the viper, the dice or whatever it was meant to be; had this creature, this beast, all but thrashing with what it noticed. That it stilled beneath the blanket made of roots and autumn leaves, lowered to the ground as to feel the earth shake.
With thunder and a quake and then the rattling of a deer, of a stag in the midst of a one-sided little hunt, perusing as it munched and inching closer to the snake. That could smell it, could taste it, could see it though it hadn't.
It wasn't hard for it to imagine what a stag of this looked like: with a crown made of bones and the dead from the forest, with eyes that knew more than what the creature had let on, with hooves that would strike and break a river into two, and with fur and the kind of pelt that any hunter would want to skin.
Just to know what it felt like to be a messenger for Death because to this earthly creature, with no legs or even hands, to know this and to have it and to feel it for itself was why it loved the gentle deer and had chased to where it'd been.
Because it knew things it knew not — and that was why Tom was here: sprawled to Harry's side and enveloped with what had him and waiting without moving as he sucked what was left of him.
Until the shape was his shape, and the smell was his smell, and the heat was his heat as he teetered on a line. Neither human nor beast while hidden from Harry's eyes, but leaning somewhere to one of them when Tom sensed him from behind.
As there was cinnamon and cardamom, lemon and fresh mint, and the tenderness of a mushroom having bowed to evening rain — and that was one way to describe it: the smell of Harry when he came. That if honest was who he was, then Tom wouldn't have caved.
He would've struck him like a snake and would've bitten him on the neck, and would've done to him what winter could only dream of doing to summer. If he kissed him and had him and tangled him to the floor, sealing him to the cracks that were missing his every touch. And Tom would eat him, bruise him, lick him until Harry laughed because it was one thing to be wanted and another to be needed.
And something very different to be both at the same moment because Harry — if he knew it and could read it from the spine that was willing and arching and about to break if he didn't touch it — he was more than a messenger for what Tom was afraid of.
Because he was it as it was he — that if you said his name, you wouldn't die. But rather, you'd rise from the ground you were found in, and you'd be brought back to life. If you had his name upon your lips. Or your shudder or your breath, if he unwound you from your grave and marked you with a kiss.
Going slow and being gentle as he was halfway down the neck, and scoring to every valley and the freckles of Tom's back that it was time for him to wake up — and Tom rose to him like a flower.
He started with his back, and every link down his spine met Harry with where he was. That it was one thing to be coveted, loved and adorned with everything he ever wanted when Harry touched him like a star; and another to be reverenced and knelt at like a god when Harry murmured to his shoulders and coaxed him from the bed.
Because it wasn't a morning without him, without Tom for him hold: with his stare while they brushed and then washed by the sink, with his steps while they danced from the bathroom to the kitchen, with his hands while they parted a mug of coffee to the other, and with a laugh and then a snort and then a chuckle if Harry could have it because Tom was a fumbly, messy, loving partner.
Especially when he tricked him for more kisses before work because Tom was shy when it came to asking for whatever felt good. And Harry never minded when he'd remind him that he could have it, and it would light something in Tom's eyes that made him handsome every time.
Almost like what was there now when Harry turned him and laid him down, when he pressed him with his forehead and nuzzled him in, and when he counted all the lashes that were bent before his eyes, and then he'd glance right at Tom — and oh God, he was something else.
Because his eyes were as copper and as hardened as a rock, not a breath in-between them as it would set the other off, and Tom was stilled and cold although he basked in Harry's warmth. But perhaps, this side of the bed wasn't as warm as it could've been.
Now that Harry had settled here and was pawing at a blanket, and looping it around his thumb as he breathed out a bit of peppermint. That did something to seize him then when Tom parted to lick his lips, and there was something unmistakably human with how he did it.
As if savoring this moment and wrestling what could've happened, as he had every instinct to strike him and yet he couldn't. And not yet: Tom was more than the urges and the wilderness below the skin, flaring to come out and to hunt and be hunted.
Be stomped into oblivion after lashing out with venom, be speared onto antlers after choking the other animal, and be slain by the very jaws that would nibble had it asked for it after doing so with a bite that felt more like a kiss. And after tasting the undergrowth and decay of what was there to remind itself that it hunted and that it, too, would die like this.
But not now or for a while if Harry had anything to say about it: he tore a glance into the wilderness and then sighed out the toothpaste that was begging to be muddled with the sweet smell of a hunt. And so he hissed in Parseltongue — it sounded garbled to a Speaker, but it was music in Tom's ears and he tilted in affection — that he wouldn't mind a little chase if Tom would have him right then.
You're the death of me.
Tom bumped him and breathed for the first time. Then he hissed a bit of something that was followed by a 'one ' and peppered with a series of soft kisses to start. Roaming his hand through his hair while holding him to the bed and from side-to-side, it was easier to just mend him to himself. And to bridge Tom to the old world that the pillows couldn't suffice because nothing could come close to what smelled from Harry's neck.
The heat here was exquisite; it was like cuddling beside the sun and knowing at no point you'd be burnt because this was all for you.
You're the death of me.
"You're so gentle," and Harry nipped him as he said it, "You can go harder if you want to. You can — "
Tom shushed him, so he could have this as a human before going at it like a serpent. And then circling back to human once the hunt had soon ended so he could trace at every welt rising brightly from Harry's lips and soothe them, fold them and have them whittled as Tom had him.
It was less so an apology and rather a 'thank you' that Harry — he returned it with a hand squeezing lightly at Tom's neck and digging softly with a nail when he kissed him right back.