Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.
Conversation in the Bedroom
In the dead of night, Scorpius woke up to the sound of someone slipping out of bed. Everything about the bed felt strange and unfamiliar to him, from the soft pillows to the firmness of the spring mattress, from the weight of the woollen blanket to the texture of the velvety sheet against his skin. He buried his face in the blanket, which smelled of fragrant wood and warm spices—a certain someone's signature scent.
He was naked, and he was sleeping in Blaise Zabini's bed.
There was a rustling sound, a swish and a dull thud of a wardrobe being opened and closed, and more rustling. With his face turned away from the sound, Scorpius kept his eyes close and pretended to sleep. Bare feet padded across the wooden floor and stopped. There was a pause, the kind of pause that was riddled with tension and meaning. Scorpius kept his breathing even and slow, and he tried to relax and not to fidget.
A moment later, that certain someone padded out of the room and quietly closed the door behind him. Once the sound had faded and he was alone at last, Scorpius breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes. The room was dark, darker than he had imagined. Everything in the room was reduced to vague shapes and silhouettes, mere shadows lurking in the night.
Scorpius looked around for a clock. Nevertheless, he could not find anything in the dark, and he did not dare turn on the light. He was not even sure where the lamp was, and he could not remember where he had left his wand—or his clothes for that matter. Heaving a breath, he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. As he ran his hand over the warm, empty space beside him, an empty feeling washed over him and swept him under.
The memory of this evening replayed itself in his mind: the intimate jazz club, the vibrant sound of the live jazz quintet, the conversation and the occasional cheer, the fizz of the ginger ale he had drunk, the green of the lime and the mint that garnished Blaise's mojito, the ghost of a smile he had caught once or twice upon Blaise's lips, and Blaise's eyes—dark and keen and deep as the night.
Being a responsible adult, he had taken Blaise home, and Blaise had offered to make him coffee in return. They were kissing while Miles Davis was playing in the background. By the time Miles Davis had stopped playing and the coffee had turned tepid, they were fondling and tonguing each other, their bodies a messy tangle on the sofa. The sex was good; sleeping with Blaise in bed was even better.
Lying in the said bed in the dark, Scorpius felt himself heating up, and his body tingled with the ghosts of Blaise's kisses and caresses. Ever so slowly he shifted his legs, took a slow, deep breath, and gradually let it out. He had really done it, hadn't it? He had slept with a regular customer from the coffee house where he worked—a regular who happened to be his father's old classmate.
"He's something of a collector," his father once remarked about Blaise Zabini. "And it's not always vintage records he's collecting either."
Had he become one of the goldfish in Blaise's pond? Scorpius smiled a wry smile, and a flicker of loneliness came over him. Was it curiosity or loneliness or something else entirely that compelled him to accept Blaise's invitation? He could not tell anymore. All he knew was that he wanted to be more than just a one-night stand to Blaise.
But is that what Blaise wants?
With a pang he turned to lie on his side, his fingers brushing against Blaise's pillow. Sooner or later he would have to leave the room and face the man in question. For now, however, he would stay in Blaise's bed like a spoiled child and sleep the rest of these dark hours away. Curling up beneath the cover, he breathed in the scent he had come to love and closed his eyes.
In the limbo between dreams and reality, he heard the sound of a door being opened. Lamplight trickled into the room, into the night and into his dream. Woken from a dream he could no longer recall, he sensed someone walk up to the bed and stand beside him, watching him in silence. After a moment of stillness, a warm hand stroked his hair with unexpected gentleness.
His heart skipped a beat, Scorpius stayed as quiet and still as he could manage and kept his eyes shut. A moment later, the hand drew away, and a soft sigh fell from that certain someone's mouth. What was Blaise thinking about, Scorpius wondered, but he would not ask Blaise about that right now.
"Blaise," he called out instead.
For one unsettling moment, nothing stirred in the dimness of the room, as if time had ground to a halt, and that certain someone too had come to a standstill. "Go back to sleep," Blaise said, his voice quiet and low. "We'll talk in the morning."
Stricken with a fit of agitation, Scorpius turned to Blaise and gazed at the face that had intruded upon his nocturnal dream and his waking reverie. "I'm not going to pretend nothing had happened. I didn't have a drink after all." He averted his gaze. "But you can think however you like."
Several heartbeats of silence passed on before Blaise let out a breath and spoke up at last. "In that case, I don't need to pretend either." With a dismissive wave of his hand he turned off the light, and the enveloping darkness of the night returned to the bedroom once more.
"Are you coming to bed?" Scorpius heard himself say.
"Is that an invitation?" Blaise drawled, and feeling at once bashful and a little morose, Scorpius fell silent. Something rustled in the dark, and the mattress sank as Blaise settled down beside him, their arms not quite touching, and that was good enough for now. "I've never liked sleeping on the sofa."
Finis.