word count: 464

warnings: sexual mentions, implied excessive drinking


He's drunk again. Maybe Percy should mind. Maybe that should be some giant red flag, a reminder that Draco Malfoy is not the sort of man he should love. And yet, he doesn't care. He's happy to let Draco into his life once again, to hell with the consequences.

"You're cute," Draco says.

"You're drunk."

Draco just grins and closes the distance between them, capturing Percy's lips in a bruising kiss.

Percy wonders if this is the only way Draco can love him. Not that he thinks Draco really and truly loves him. What they have is complicated. All tangled bedsheets and needy touches. Percy thinks it might have started as a way to mourn, a way to cope as the world fell apart around them after the war. It had been so easy to fall into bed, to be held by someone, to be needed.

That hasn't changed in the two years following the final battle. They are still coping, still doing this strange dance that they have transformed into an art.

Draco is still there in the morning, and Percy tries not to notice how handsome he is in that sky-blue button-up shirt. Noticing will only hurt his heart, and Percy doesn't think he can take it.

"I'm sorry," Draco says.

And Percy doesn't really understand because one thing he knows for sure is that Draco Malfoy does not apologize for anything. All he can do is tilt his head to the side and stare at him with confused eyes and knitted brows. It really is a strange morning. Draco is usually long gone by now, but here he is. Here he is, apologizing for something Percy does not understand.

"I…" Draco clears his throat, smoothing his fingers over the light-blue material of his shirt. It does nothing to tame the creases and wrinkles, but Percy thinks it's more of an anxious habit than an attempt to actually tidy himself. "Percy, it isn't just about sex for me. I think… Well, I know it is for you. That's why I always get drunk first. At least I can pretend you…"

"You are an absolute idiot," Percy says dryly.

And suddenly he's laughing because it really is such a strange and baffling world. There's a part of him that's always hoped something more would come of this dalliance with Draco, that maybe, against all odds, it could somehow mean something more. Apparently it has, and he's never even noticed at all.

"It isn't about sex for me either," Percy adds, and he can't resist a grin.

Draco kisses him. This is softer than the nighttime kisses, gentle and sweet, and it feels so much more sincere. This is the part of Draco Percy has longed for, and now, somehow, it is his.