They hadn't really had a chance to discuss the plan further, so with Albus's incredibly nonspecific instructions of "you could come join me in my bed after lights out," Scorpius boldly set out to make The Thing that Happened happen again. Well, maybe not boldly. More Slytherin than that—cunning. Quiet. Stealthy. Whoops!
Scorpius had slipped on something just outside the barrier of Albus's bed hangings and he felt his knee collide painfully with the polished wood floor of the dormitory. In the dead-silence of night, it sounded like a cannon blast. He was positive he had awoken everybody in the entire school.
"Whuuu?" came a low, groggy voice from the other side of the room.
"Sorry!" Scorpius whispered.
"Wha wazzat?" said the voice.
"Nothing," he whispered back, "nothing, so sorry. I was just...sorry— "
"Shut it," the voice yawned, then someone rolled over and it was quiet again.
Scorpius nabbed whatever he had slipped on off the floor—it felt like an item of clothing—and turned around with every intention of hobbling back to his own bed and hiding, when suddenly an arm shot out from behind Albus's curtains and dragged him inside. It was only with great personal fortitude that he managed not to yelp like a small dog being trod on.
And then he was staring Albus in the face, and then lower, pain and terror forgotten. Albus had apparently prepared for their rendezvous by being shirtless and Scorpius was speechless and gaping in the presence of Albus's bare chest and stomach and a trail of dark hair that led...
Scorpius pulled himself together for barely long enough to cast a Silencing Charm on Albus's curtains.
"Why are you holding my Harpies shirt?" Albus asked him, evidently unaware that his personal magnetism had incapacitated Scorpius.
"Huh?" Scorpius asked eloquently.
"You've got my shirt," Albus told him, then reached out to take it from Scorpius's hands.
"I slipped on it out there," he said.
"Sorry," Albus cringed, "I should probably try to be a bit tidier."
And with those words he tossed the shirt over the edge of the bed, where it landed back on the floor.
Scorpius climbed onto Albus's bed, and sat across from him, eyes glued to Albus's bare chest.
"You look...interested," Albus said. He sounded out-of-breath already, and Scorpius would've sworn he could almost see Albus's heart thudding in his chest.
"I am," Scorpius told Albus's bellybutton, "can we maybe— "
And then something absolutely snapped inside Scorpius and he lunged forward awkwardly, landing hard on top of Albus and pinning him to the bed, because he could not stand not touching him for a single moment longer. He found Albus's lips and kissed him ardently, one hand holding himself steady and the other running across the expanse of Albus's skin that his shirt normally covered.
Albus wasted no time in tugging frantically at the hem of Scorpius's shirt—clearly attempting to remove it without breaking their kiss. Unable to do so, Albus changed tactics and inserted both his hands underneath it, over Scorpius's stomach—which was a little bit ticklish and made him squirm—smoothing over his chest and then around to his back which did not feel ticklish but something else entirely...
Scorpius placed one leg on either side of Albus's hips, effectively straddling him, and broke their kiss with the intention of removing his shirt, but Albus beat him to it, yanking it inelegantly over his head, and then he stared blatantly at Scorpius's bare upper body. It was a very exposed, almost uncomfortable sort of feeling and he found he had a new respect for Albus for greeting him half-naked. It had been quite a brave thing to do.
It was funny—they had seen one another shirtless before many times, but it was as if they hadn't because Scorpius had never really let himself look his fill—and as he gazed down at Albus he knew that he would never, as long as he lived, forget the sight of Albus sprawled out underneath him, chest heaving, eyes blazing—and he allowed himself a moment to revel in the fact that they were really doing this now, this was actually a part of this "new version" of themselves they had envisioned together. And then he was returned sharply into the present by Albus bucking his hips up to push against Scorpius.
Scorpius felt as though it would be proper to go back to kissing him for at least a little while, but he had been seized by a desperate desire to divest Albus of all his clothing, so instead of leaning his face down, he crawled backwards and hooked his fingers in the waistband of Albus's pyjamas. Almost before he had finished doing so, Albus lifted his backside off the bed to make his job easier, and Scorpius took in a deep breath as he pulled them off, leaving Albus completely naked. He didn't get much of a chance to look because Albus sat up instantly and started trying to pull Scorpius's pyjamas off.
"Wait," Scorpius panted at him.
"Why?" Albus said, his eyebrows furrowing in concern, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Scorpius assured him, "I just...I wanted you to...go first this time. That's all."
"Yeah, alright," Albus agreed, but then he admitted a bit more quietly, "but could you still take them off now? I want to look at you while you..."
Albus looked so sweet and uncertain in his perfectly reasonable request that Scorpius felt his own confidence bolstered by a wish to make Albus more comfortable. He made to push down his pyjamas but Albus reached out for him and grabbed hold of the drawstring.
"Let me?" he whispered.
Scorpius nodded. Albus fixed his gaze on the tented front of Scorpius's pyjamas, and then unfastened them and pulled them down, and Scorpius kicked them the rest of the way off. Albus did not allow Scorpius to coil up in modesty (which was Scorpius's first instinct), instead placing both hands firmly on Scorpius's hips and sweeping his eyes from his legs, with a long pause while he looked between them, then all the way up Scorpius's chest and into his face. After a moment of this, Scorpius realised he could use this time that was, for him, mainly just awkward to admire Albus the way Albus was admiring him—except that Albus was now leaning forward and restricting the view. It was at that point that he noticed they could see one another so clearly because Albus's wand was propped up on the headboard of the bed and was emitting a flickering glow, like candlelight. It struck Scorpius as really very romantic, and one of Albus's better ideas.
"You're quite beautiful," Scorpius told him softly, looking down at Albus and running his fingers lightly over Albus's chest.
"Thanks," said Albus, quickly glancing down at himself as if to make sure Scorpius was looking the right person when he said that.
Albus did not say anything about Scorpius, but he didn't need to. The intense, focused way he stared at Scorpius's body—like he was trying to burn the sight of it into his memory in case he never saw it again—spoke volumes about how long he had wanted to do this, how much this meant to him and how afraid he was that this was simply too good to be true.
"Or what I can see of you is, anyway, I didn't really get a proper look at you, which I have to say feels less than fair..." Scorpius added.
And just like that, his words had the desired effect of lightening the mood to something Scorpius was a lot more comfortable with. Albus smirked—which was an expression that Scorpius had decided suited his face marvellously—and leaned back onto the bad, propping himself up on his elbows.
"Is this what you'd call a proper look?" he asked cheekily, and Scorpius nodded because naked Albus had quickly jumped to the top of the list of all his favourite things to stare at, which included such sights as shelves of books and mountains of sweets and the gardens of the manor at twilight and clothed Albus. Naked Albus was the winner, hands down, and speaking of hands...
Fearing the potential repercussions of a badly placed elbow or knee if he simply attempted to throw himself at Albus again, Scorpius decided instead to lay down carefully on his left side next to him. He used his left arm to hold himself up and placed his right hand on the inside of Albus's thigh, where he trailed his fingertips up and down to the knee and back several times and watched with relish as Albus clenched and unclenched his fingers on the sheets and on Scorpius's bicep—he was clearly itching to grab hold of Scorpius's hand and place it exactly where he wanted it, and Scorpius was considering continuing the teasing, light touches until Albus became desperate enough to do that.
Albus got to that point a lot faster than Scorpius had predicted, but he didn't just start rearranging limbs on his own. Instead he turned his head, looked Scorpius in the eye and said "Please," very politely—it almost sounded like he was asking Scorpius to pass him something at the table or some other entirely mundane favour except that it was very breathy and hot and not at all mundane.
If he uses that voice, I'll pull the stars out of the sky for him, was the odd thought that crossed Scorpius's mind as he immediately reached up higher and started lightly stroking. He looked at Albus's face, the shadows that crossed over it in the soft light, his bright eyes—which were trained down to look at Scorpius's naked body—and his mouth—lips parted and relaxed, and then Scorpius leaned down to kiss him gently because he had spent such a very long time wanting to kiss Albus and now he was allowed to, and it seemed a shame to not take advantage of the privilege. Albus kissed back, then dropped one of his hands and placed it over Scorpius's—wrapping his fingers and showing him exactly how he wanted to be touched.
As per the demonstrated instructions, Scorpius continued kissing him and doing exactly what Albus had shown him by feel, and after what felt like no time at all, Albus was lifting his hips off the bed and squeezing Scorpius's arm so tightly it almost hurt—and that was when Scorpius wrenched his face away from Albus's lips because he had not gotten to watch last time and he wasn't going to miss that again. Albus didn't really have time to protest before his brows furrowed and his mouth opened and Scorpius's hand was suddenly getting very, very wet. Albus made a low, choked sort of noise that he didn't even attempt to stifle and it made Scorpius shiver.
Albus let out a long breath and relaxed back onto the bed, and Scorpius took this as his cue to let go. After a moment, Albus rolled over onto his side, then he pushed Scorpius's left shoulder to indicate that he should now lie on his back—then Albus sat up and was briefly straddling him so as to get over onto the other side where he could use his right hand to touch Scorpius. After they had effectively switched places, Albus grabbed Scorpius's right hand and ran his palm and fingers over it to transfer the wetness—that was a very clever idea, Scorpius managed to think for a fraction of a second—then Albus unceremoniously reached down and started stroking him.
Scorpius squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to slow himself down a bit because looking at Albus and touching Albus and having Albus touching him was so overstimulating that he thought he might just faint of too much. Albus seemed to recognise that Scorpius was having a bit of a problem.
"It's okay if it's really quick...I don't mind," he whispered.
"Good to hear," Scorpius thought (though he was pretty sure that what came out of his mouth was "Uh huh"), because he didn't think he could hold out for much longer than a few more seconds—he wasn't used to starting with a warm, wet hand—especially not one that didn't belong to him, and it felt so overwhelmingly, unbelievably incredible that he knew it was going to be over extremely soon. The idea of having Albus watch his face, however, was much less appealing than it had been when it was the other way round, so he reached up and pulled Albus down for a messy kiss and then he felt like he was exploding—it went on and on for so long that he was starting to legitimately worry that he might actually continue in this manner until he died, but he was having trouble coming up with any concrete reasons why that would be a bad thing—and then he sort of wound down and floated back into himself and collapsed back onto the pillows with a huff.
Albus let out a low whistle and Scorpius somehow managed to open his eyes (his body was demanding sleep) only to see Albus looking very impressed and pleased with himself. He nodded and smirked—that smirk again—and then snuggled up into Scorpius's side and tucked his head into his neck. Scorpius could have happily laid there until the summer holidays (where they would just go back home and do the same thing there), but two things were drawing his immediate attention: one, there was kind of a mess of wet stickiness everywhere now (literally exactly twice the amount of mess he was accustomed to, he realised), and two, their dorm mates would certainly not be pleased to find them curled up naked together in bed tomorrow morning. So Scorpius kissed Albus on top of his head, gathered all his physical strength and willpower, and attempted to disengage. Albus tightened his arms around Scorpius in response.
"Stay," he murmured into Scorpius's neck. Scorpius wished more than anything to comply.
"As much as I'd love to," he said ruefully, "and believe me when I say there is nothing else I want more than to fall asleep right here with you, what happens when everybody wakes up tomorrow and finds us here together?"
"We'll get out of bed after they leave," Albus reassured him, "Are your hangings drawn?"
Scorpius nodded.
"Then put your clothes back on and stay here," said Albus firmly, as though this were decided, and he pulled Scorpius's shirt out from underneath himself and tossed it in Scorpius's face.
Scorpius grabbed his wand and cleaned them up—did Albus just not clean up after himself? Was Scorpius the only one in this relationship who thought it was gross to sleep in sticky, crusty sheets? —and pulled his pyjamas back on as Albus rummaged under the bed for his shirt, then started to dress as well. It was a shame, really, Scorpius thought, as Albus pulled the threadbare Harpies tee shirt over his head, covering up all that lovely skin—Scorpius would just as soon Albus never get dressed again. Unless he wants to put his dress robes back on, that is, Scorpius corrected himself in his own thoughts, that would be more than fine with me.
Albus cuddled right back up into him and Scorpius could fight sleep no longer.
"Love you," Albus whispered sleepily, and Scorpius felt the breath from the words ghosting over his throat, and that was the last thing he remembered before morning light.