Disclaimer: JKR owns all.
VIVAASA
by: carpetfibers
Day 164
The pub vibrates with noise and heat. He slouches, mouth attached to a glass filled with a bitter taste and eyes unable to glance away. She wears red, her shoulders bare once removed of the thick wool coat. Her date keeps a hand on her back, and she does not notice its continuous touch. She is oblivious and energetic, her chatter full of New Year's phrasing and laughter. He drinks more deeply and watches as she presses her lips against the date's cheek ever so briefly. He does not realize his glass is empty until it's replaced with another, a stranger's lipsticked smile accompanying it.
"You here alone?" the woman asks. He watches as the date's hand touches the pinned up hair, a tangle coiling around one of the foreign fingers.
He watches and drinks again. "Yes."
The woman dances with intention, her body slick and flush against his own. He understands the signs, the wordless invitation given him, and when the woman moves to leave the pub, an hour before the new year rings in, he leaves with her. He takes her to the small flat, empty and vacant of light. He does not wait for a voiced permission, and already there is a mouth hot and wet on his own. He feels the hair, black and fine pass through his fingers; he tastes the soft flesh of the throat and smells the heaviness of a musky perfume, foreign and stale to his tongue. The darkness hides the woman's features from definition, and if he only looks at her skin, he can pretend as he wants. He can imagine the hushed pants as someone else's, the plush damp as another's inviting tightness. But the hair runs through his fingers, there is no fight, no ensnarement. The rushed cries are low and husky, nothing like the voice that echoes internally, even now as his own physical want exacts itself, near the base of his spine, a dulled throbbing, ache that spears his blood.
The woman is speaking and he hears nothing of it; he pushes himself off of her, his stripped chest chilled with sweat and exertion. The woman is telling him her name and he doesn't want to know it; he straightens his pants, zipping the fly and re-buttoning. The woman leaves and he hears only the slam of the door. He has relief until the door opens at midnight, amidst sounds of cheering and celebration. The street and neighbors chorus in the new annum, and she only stares at him, the streetlight illuminating the black lace of a forgotten garment near his feet.
Her date is not present and her coat is missing. Her chest heaves and breathlessly, her voice translating the unwitnessed run to the doorway, she greets him. "Happy New Year, Malfoy."
He sees her naked shoulders and bare neck, the cold night air flowing in from behind her. She shivers and he rises, his hands already moving to touch her. She turns from him, her lips unhappy, and he stops. Fireworks erupt in the distance, drenching the doorway in colored brilliance. "Granger-"
"I should have considered this before. Um, maybe leave a bag or a piece of string on the doorway?" She interrupts, her eyes feigning an interest in the sky battle overhead. "You know, just to save us some embarrassment."
"Granger, look at me."
Stubbornly, she refuses, and with hands betrayed by trembling, he forces her to turn around. The unhappiness rests in her eyes and in the painful curve of her lips, and he opens his mouth to explain, to make her understand. He opens his mouth and says nothing, a restless anger seizing him. There should be no cause to make excuses, to give reasons. She holds no ties over him, and he- he is a lodger and nothing more.
He pushes a jacket, one of his own from the hall closet, into her hands. "You should wear something if you're going to stay outside."
His jacket is ignored and when she leaves the doorway seconds later, that lingering unhappiness clinging to her, he stays behind. She does not return that night, and he spends his early morning hours with his temple in his hands, desiring something he does not wish for. He recognizes, in her absence, that it is not just the physical he longs for. There's a great intangible he misses and hungers after. Her presence, when near him, is a balm, and her presence, when away from him, is a thing dearly sought after. He does not know when it became so immeasurable; he only knows that his physical relief is nothing compared to the one he searches after.
He should leave her home, he recognizes; he should leave before an unimagined something happens. He should leave, and yet he stays, still. He feels for her, and he is too addicted to that strange fluttering called feeling to do anything except obey it.
End Day 164