Harry was full of surprises, if you knew exactly where to press. At his sternum — the heart of him, a rising continent beneath the blankets. Roll him gently until he's pressing the better half of him into the mattress, and let his right side catch the moment you slip your elbow around his own, and know the weight of you (Thomas, Tomothy, Tom) as an extra set of valves in a muscle full of love. Realistically, that was the brain — the think tank, nervous. Yet numb in such a way that a knife wouldn't dare to hurt it; and these affections, all the love, gleam as worms do in flooded soil.
Just as Harry — indeed, a worm — curled further into his pillow. And mouthed the ends of it, mapped the world, and exhaustingly was a dear. Many seasons could come and pass without a difference in-between, and Tom would still be just as tender, just as fallen, for this deer. Extrapolate between the nouns and the meanings were all the same: some snippish, shaggy, caught in the branches at a headlight, politing when he wants to be and the kind of menace inside a leash, was the same half, if not synonymous, to the very man he'd dare to marry. Supposedly it turned to will as soon as Harry mumbles, "Mornin.'"
Pointedly, not in English. Or any language he might've known. The stress of it rattled true: he is not a native Parselmouth, but the touch of it along his spine — the vibration — could fool a Speaker. Tom hisses, greedy, besmirching, just so. Earlier, the mumbled greeting could brush the bone plate above his heart. Receiving the next one pierces through, like lightning inside a bottle: he sounded confident in imitation; Harry told him he was a stone.
That Tom, fascination like his actual middle name, squeezes him. Once, and twice then for the galleon, and a third one because he wanted to. Muffling instincts as he did so, the other side of him caved away for something human as he indulged.
Much of it was not as human as he would normally when the sun was out; but it was exactly what he needed, and needed still, while he hugged him. And then he chases, slowly. Relishing all the warmth, and the happy trills, and needy arms trying to tell him he's awfully cute. Violently, in the same way a buck with velvet could be violent, Harry attacks him. Or he kissed him — it was hard to tell with the Parseltongue; and said the strangest things while he battled for his pillow in lieu of Tom. Like wind egg (quidditch); skin (fuck, depending on the reverberations scattered above his bones); last light (yesterday, winter, night); and a wild assortment of other things Tom could preen himself for teaching him. Or in other words, roll a brow at the nonsense he had to feel.
Rattling once, twice, seven times up his chest — the pronunciation is even worse as soon as Harry peered at him. Idling between a haggaring, scrunched up piece of pillow and a very charming, slightly mad, could easily strangle him if he wants to, loving boyfriend who thinks the world or of Hell when it comes to Harry. Don't be fooled: he's rather cunning. Don't be dull: he'll think you're teasing and trying to snare him inside your ribcage for eternity — and he will let you. Like that was the easiest conclusion for a story as rotten as theirs: like they were mushrooms (mycelium) across a forest, hummed as one, as nightfall bled away to reveal a carcass in their spores. Excitedly, daringly, one or the other or maybe both, Tom leans in with a rumble, a "Good morning" in Parseltongue.
The taste of it was a sharp thing, the sound of it was a roar in the same way a mighty cobra could be a lion where it stood. Or in other words, it was deafening and dangerous and hungry and powerful and all-consuming — yet there was nothing to be afraid of. Most would quiver (yes) at the very least (like a mouse), but there are few things Tom could do to incite that when Harry laughed.
Riding wave after wave of brushing dent marks in their ribs, as if Harry was fast-asleep before he woke up beneath a cat — thundering, harbingering, the delightful things a tom would do. It just so happened that the Tom against him was as ominous as they could come. Dark eyes, pink mouth, then the wishbone of his cheek. Devastatingly the sort of person you'd wake up to find in dreams, that would somehow become a nightmare as soon as he pressed you with another "Morning." Letting it fall against your wishbone (the collarbone, but more fancy); like a finger mapping down all his favorite hiding places. Except for here, and here, and here (the blankets fall), and right there for good measure, and here again because he wanted.
He had the appetite of a rich man who couldn't shake off where he came from, and that is the same thing you could see in Harry when he gathered Tom onto his pillow. And stroked the back of him, and his hair, and his forehead coming down, and the soft burrows of his dimples, and half a wishbone he could touch. Resting somewhere within reach, if that was something Tom had wanted, if biting down or kissing here or nosing rightward is in his interest, if hissing "Morning, morning, morning" would make it permanent in his palm. Realistically, that was just romance — a gesture, figurative. Yet at the same, Harry's palm could feel the murmuring beneath the folds, like bits of him (Tom) could rent the space here for all his life.
Perhaps he would, and who would stop him? Or deny him — Harry wouldn't. That says a lot of things about one of them, but you'll never find that in the papers. The Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and the others around the continent, coming doorstep to owl post, dropping headlines like burning toast, will meet a fireplace if they ever bolded that Tom was softer than he looked. Especially when he's like this, one of his eyebrows in an arch, his bottom lip in a grave while it's very much still alive, and pressing down on it to keep his smile as a secret when Harry hissed. Regretfully imitation couldn't substitute a need for practice; so he took it upon himself, as Harry's boyfriend, or a nosey git when Harry shushed him, and sighed the exact pronunciation that the man could follow when they kissed.