29

Harry’s dreams were more fitful than usual tonight, he pondered distantly—but then, he’d rather be plagued by colourful blurs and formless voices and ache all over than be forced to bear witness to another of Voldemort’s heinous acts, so he supposed this was a step up. It was just so dark, though, and strangely lonely; he felt like he was missing something, or being missed. Incomplete, and longing for completion.

He tried to remember when he’d fallen asleep, what he’d done the day before, how long it was until daybreak—but nothing came to him. He was just tired, so tired. His mind felt like it was stuck in tar—and a brief, muddied flash of panic said like being under Imperius. But he could fight off an Imperius, he could. He’d done it before. At least, he thought he had. He recognised this feeling, the idea that there was no point in fighting, that it was easier to just give in… It would feel so much better to give himself over to the mind-dulling numbness of nothing.

Except he couldn’t do that—or, he could, but that wouldn’t resolve the irritating sense that there was still something missing. A something he needed on the one hand that outweighed the nothing he wanted on the other. Needs and wants, it was always about needs and wants these days. The things he wanted were never the things he needed, not for him, and a sneering voice at the back of his mind said Tough shit, Potter. That’s life.

No, that was just what he’d been served; it didn’t mean he had to accept it. He could make the need his want, could let the want become a need and satisfy both parts of himself. He wanted to be complete, to find that missing piece and be one, and the need quickly coalesced, building into a heavy, desperate urge that settled right behind his heart and fired it into a galloping rhythm that thudded in time with the pounding inside his skull.

He was hot—freezing hot, and he needed—

“Harry?”

There was pressure on his chest, something heavy and warm leaning on him—and then it was gone, and someone had him by the shoulders and was shaking him. Or shoving, rather, roughly and rudely. Didn’t they realise what time it was?

“Harry? Harry, wake the fuck up.”

Something slapped his cheek—it stung. Harry’s lids fluttered, but his vision was muzzy, blurred at the edges and unfocused. No glasses, he thought, though he kept squinting his eyes, waiting for the room to gain clarity.

There was a buzzing in his ears, like whoever was speaking to him was doing it through a swarm of bees. That was what was stinging him: a million pinpricks all over his skin, and it hurt like hell, but the pain wasn’t sharp enough and the buzzing wasn’t incessant enough to shake the persistent feeling…that he was still missing something. He’d been missing it in his dreams, and he was missing it awake now, and Harry was beginning to wish he’d just given in to the siren call of nothingness instead of choosing—choosing!—to chase down whatever it was that would complete him. This thing that would fill him. Satisfy him.

He shifted in place, squirming to be let up, and a fondly annoyed voice chided, “Stop that—lie down and rest. You want some water? Granger left a tincture if there’s any pain…”

The blurry figure moved away, and Harry snapped a hand out, suddenly desperate not to be left alone, grabbing what he could. His fingers curled around a thin-boned wrist, and it was warm. He could feel the pulse throbbing just under the surface. It was a good throb, wild and strong, and he drew it closer. He wanted it so close, it became his own, taming the blood racing in his veins. He felt just a little less incomplete with another body so close.

There was a chuckling groan, just at his ear. “I can’t fetch the tincture if you don’t let go, Harry…”

Harry didn’t know what this tincture was, only that he didn’t need it. Or want it. All that mattered was whoever this was, who could make him whole again. Not Ron, not Hermione—oh. Yeah. “Draco…”

“You’ve really got to stop calling me that…” Draco whined, but he quit his fussing about the tincture and settled on the floor beside the sofa. He curled his arm over Harry’s chest, letting it lie there, and this time it wasn’t a heavy pressure, just a comforting one. Could he feel Harry’s heartbeat, and how off it was? Could he fix it?

“Draco,” he said again, because it was the only thing he could think of to say at the moment. It was easy to hold on to, such a name, and the need that was coiling in him wrapped its tendrils around that name and squeezed. “Draco. Draco. Dra—”

“Enough, honestly,” Draco shushed, his voice carrying a twinge of worry, and Harry imagined those lacy white brows were knitting whole sweaters. “Let me at least get you some water? Your voice is—”

“Draco,” he said again, and his grip tightened on Draco’s wrist draped over his chest, while his free hand came up around Draco’s neck, settling just at the nape and rubbing little hypnotic circles in the fine feather-like hairs he found there. He exhaled slowly, and it came out a ragged, juddering breath, staccato over the roiling urges in his chest, stomach, core. “I need…”

Draco moved over him, a blurry shadow of concern and care. “You need—what? Pain potion? I told you, Granger left a tincture on the—or do you need a salve? We didn’t notice you were wounded; Granger dabbed dittany on the scrapes and cuts but—oh. Or do you need the loo? You haven’t pissed in two days… Fuck, that’ll be awkward, but we can—”

“Draco…” he breathed, drawing the name into his lungs until it filled him—but the name alone wasn’t enough. He tilted his head, leaning in until Draco finally stopped asking what he needed and realised.

Draco’s mouth was just as warm and solid as his body, like there was an everburning fire kindling in his core and oh. Oh there was, right. He was fire and fury and cool, calculating judgement all at once. Extremes in every direction, soft and hard and sharp and gentle. A man could get drunk on a paradox like Draco Malfoy. Maybe that was what was happening, Harry thought.

“Harry—Potter, st-stop. You’re sick…” Draco pulled his wrist from Harry’s grasp, turning his head to the side but not drawing away entirely. His hot breath fanned over Harry’s cheek, and their noses brushed.

“So make me feel better…” Harry breathed. “Draco… Draco, make me…”

“I’m trying—” Draco protested shortly, trying to pull away, and Harry tightened his hold.

“Not hard enough…” He let his free hand snake between them, reaching down to brush over the sensitive muscles of his stomach and trace his navel. No, not hard enough by half—but getting there.

He twisted his hand and rubbed the butt of his palm firmly over the front of Draco’s trousers, drawing a sharp, hissed oath from lips plump from kissing. Draco had his arm braced just next to Harry’s head now, the other hanging limp at his side like dead weight. The braced arm trembled with the effort of supporting his weight, and his hips dropped a hair, sliding seamlessly into Harry’s cupped palm.

Harry’s vision cleared, and he could see Draco worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes clenched shut tight. “…Don’t.”

“Unwind, Draco…” Harry urged. Maybe Draco didn’t see that he was a little incomplete too, that Harry could help, that Harry wanted to. Draco was hot and hardening under Harry’s touch, and surely that meant something, but Slytherins could be so pointlessly stubborn, especially this one.

Harry curled his fingers, following the shape of Draco’s prick, imagining it was his own. They could fill each other’s empty spaces, just like this, and make a more-than-something, a whole greater than the sum of its parts. They could—

Draco seized sharply, hips bucking, then pressed his forearm tight against Harry’s throat, threatening to cut off his air supply. “If you don’t keep your fucking hands to yourself I swear to the source of all magic, Potter, I will rip your balls off with my newly filed teeth.” He groaned, somewhere deep in his throat. “Fucking—Granger and her—fucking virility serum.”

Harry tried to swallow, but he couldn’t get the lump past the arm Draco had crushing his windpipe. “Then you—touch me…” he rasped. He pulled his hand back up, slipping it around Draco’s shoulder to splay against his back, pressing them closer.

It felt like he was an arm’s length under the water’s surface, and drowning; he could see salvation, life, sanity—he just couldn’t quite reach it. But it was so near, so near, and the need was even stronger for its proximity. He would go mad, die, if Draco took this away from him now.

Words began to spill from his lips, babbling like a brook. “Please… Please, please Draco, please just—” He lifted his hips, rutting against all the long, lean bits of Draco he could reach, showing him where the need was sharpest, where he most longed to be made whole again. “Aren’t…aren’t you my mate—”

The arm pressing on his throat was jerked away, and a hand came up to cover his mouth—it was bandaged. When had Draco gotten hurt? “We don’t use the M word, remember?” Draco hissed. “Because we’re fucking human beings and aren’t to be bent by the whims of nature.”

Harry licked his palm, and Draco snatched his hand back, glaring in disgust as he wiped it on his shirt. Hips undulating jerkily in a parody of a thrust, Harry gave a deliberative hmm. “You’re plenty bent for me, though…” He grinned at his own words, because it was so damn hilarious, and why hadn’t he laughed about this before? Draco’s imagined subtlety, the convoluted way he went about justifying the dragon’s obsession with Harry when there was a perfectly logical explanation for it all? “You want me but you don’t want me and you don’t want to want me but you do want to want me and why are you such a—such a para…para…”

There was a word he’d wanted to use—he’d had it earlier, but it escaped him now, and he couldn’t wrap his lips around it. He closed his eyes as longing and desperation washed through him in a wave of real, physical pain, firing all his nerve endings and burning, stinging, at every point they were touching. “Please,” he begged, “Make it stop. Make it…”

“…I—I can’t, Potter—Harry, don’t…don’t ask me to…” Draco’s voice was very soft and raw with emotion, pleading.

He was straddling Harry now, back bent in an elegant curve, and Harry could feel Draco’s cock filling in his trousers, pressing against the inside of Harry’s thigh where he’d landed in all his squirming. It was such a lovely, comforting pressure, and maybe this was how Draco felt all the time, budged up tight against Harry to share his warmth and solidity. Acknowledgement that Harry—Draco—was here and wanted Draco—Harry—over all others.

The buzzing from before became an itching urgency, a craving for reassurance, to be the pinpoint of focus. He wanted to touch and be touched, to fill and be filled, an ouroboros of satisfaction and confirmation.

He felt like a right bastard, having denied Draco his approval and closeness and intimacy all this time, if this was what it felt like. Forever incomplete, forever unwhole. It was torture, and he had nowhere near the strength of spirit Draco had when it came to resistance.

Draco was staring at him, eyes dark and troubled, and Harry broke. He swallowed, throat bobbing and mouth dry. “…I need you.”

Draco’s expression twisted, and he whined a soft, keening Fuck and lunged forward to kiss Harry, hard. It was demanding and cruel and just what Harry had been aching for: a challenge. All of Draco’s fire and fury, directed at him and him alone.

They went for each other’s flies, though Draco was faster, even with the one hand, because all Harry had was a zip at his fly, while Draco had a line of fussy buttons that Harry was halfway considering hexing off.

Before Harry could start on the topmost pearl-faced button, though, Draco had slapped him away, using his bandaged hand to hold Harry’s to the couch while he held his eye meaningfully. His lips wrenched into a threatening moue. “Don’t touch me.”

“Want to—”

“Well too bad; I don’t want you to.” He gave a thrust of his hips, rutting against Harry with a viciousness that really only served to fire Harry’s blood with feverish anticipation. “You need this? I’ll give it to you. But only this.”

And some part of Harry hated that; this wasn’t completion—this was just a different kind of incompletion. He didn’t want to be the only one, it wasn’t going to be enough, not enough by half—but such thoughts were quickly dashed and scattered as Draco finally managed his fly and shoved his hand into Harry’s pants, drawing his half-hard cock out into the open. It was chilly, compared to the confines of his trousers, and Harry shivered half from the cold, half from arousal. His mind was a muddled, muzzy mess right now, but there were long, slender fingers curling around his shaft, and he could smell Draco—antiseptic and old blood and a musky hint of woodsmoke. That was a damn fine start.

Draco released him to spit into his hand, which Harry distantly thought he should find gross, but when Draco replaced his hand, tightening his grip and tugging gently, the warm, slick slide brought him swiftly around to the idea. He could feel the blood leaving his brain to pool in his cock, all that buzzing and stinging discomfort going with it. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to pure sensation, concentrating on the fact it was Draco wanking him, Draco’s spit sliding over his fevered flesh, Draco’s fingers drawing back the hood of his cock and then up again as his crown peeked out and gave a wink.

Part of him was ashamed, though he couldn’t quite recall why he should be. It was just reflex, at this point. He was too far gone, his head too buzzed and thoughts too full of Draco and his warmth and insistence and glorious contradiction. Harry groped for purchase, pulling Draco down and close again—half-terrified he wouldn’t kiss him now. I’ll give it to you. But only this. And kissing wasn’t this.

But blessedly, Draco did kiss him, and maybe he was regretting his harsh words from earlier, for his kiss was gentler this time, apologetic almost. Harry pumped his hips in counter-time to Draco’s strokes and lost himself in that kiss. His world coiled like a spring, down to just the two of them and their warmth and breath and sweat and grip-tug-slide. He wanted nothing more than to touch Draco, to show him how they could be wholly complete, but this was good, so good too.

Draco’s kisses lost their elegance and became rough and hurried, his grip on Harry’s cock quickening, and like he’d Summoned it, Harry could feel the ardent strains of his orgasm bearing down on them. It screamed in his veins, arcing down his spine to coil just behind his bollocks. Draco nipped and suckled until Harry’s lips felt scraped raw, and he drew back just enough that they nearly kissed when he spoke: “You’re close…”

“Nearly…nearly, please…”

Draco’s grip loosened, bafflingly, and he started pumping with a practised flick of his wrist. It was too quick for Harry to keep up with, so he just let go, let it happen, legs propped open as Draco wanked him to within an inch of his life, hauling him through that glittering barrier. “Sh—it, I can’t, Draco…”

Draco pressed his pointy nose into Harry’s cheek, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Then don’t.”

Harry felt the coil finally snap, his cock swelling and spurting in Draco’s palm, which was cupped expertly to keep the resulting spatter from painting the sofa and their clothes. He gently milked Harry until the shudders subsided and Harry stopped twitching like he’d grabbed hold of a live wire. Once his cock had ceased its pulsing, Draco Vanished the evidence and produced a handkerchief from the tip of his wand, daintily wiping his hands clean.

Harry lay there, boneless, while Draco fussed with his clothing, carefully tucking his cock back into his pants and doing up the fly, which was nice of him. Wouldn’t that have been hilarious, Hermione and Ron walking in to see Harry collapsed there with his everything on display? Where were they, now that he thought about it?

A wank was always good for relaxing at the end of a day, though Harry admittedly hadn’t indulged in a long while, as it was a difficult task to manage with a roommate. He wondered giddily if that might change now—though this one seemed to have well and truly tapped him. He felt his vision go blurry again, darkness encroaching from around the edges until all he could see of Draco was the faint outline of his unhappy frown, and the last thing he heard before he went under once more was Draco’s defeated, miserable whisper of I’m sorry.