Fic: We'll stay awake beneath the trees (Draco/Hermione)
We'll stay awake beneath the trees | Harry Potter | Draco/Hermione | 509 words | for the multi-fandom ficathon at lynzie914 for plural-entity, the prompt was You are the risk I'll always take. // The only branch I'll never break | PG-13 (I think) | Sometimes when he sees her, he kisses her. He always wants to, but that's not the point.
It's like a thing that has a life of its own, this, this something. He won't call it a relationship, that's not what this is. But it's something, definitely, that much he knows.
(Sometimes when he sees her, he kisses her. He always wants to, but that's not the point.)
He thinks he likes her most in the summer, when she puts on dresses and he thinks and feels sometimes in those moments in the summer heat that maybe the Sun comes up only to shine brightly and make her squint until she finally gives in and props herself on her toes to distract him by kissing him, only to take his sunglasses and put them on to shield her eyes from the glaring sun.
He teases her about it endlessly, but then she says she only kisses him when she needs to distract him and there's a note in her voice which makes him believe. Not in her blatant lies and excuses, but makes him believe she wants to believe it herself, so he lets her, because who is he not to.
Or maybe he likes her most later, in autumn, when she starts wearing shawls and tights under her summer dresses and when he starts taking off her shawls so he can kiss her neck, and maybe he likes her even more afterwards, when she smiles and lets him kiss her neck and looks at him like this is all she's ever wanted, green leaves turning into yellow and red leaves in her brown hair, his arm on her back and his promise to make coffee when they get to her flat.
He thinks different words (but never love), but he thinks words such as like and enjoy, and he puts them in sentences.
(I liked you, that time you forced me to go have dinner at that restaurant you like, the one with hundred and eighty two kinds of fish with supposedly different, yet highly unpronounceable names on the menu; I liked you even when you wouldn't let me kiss you all evening, and I liked you, probably more, when you wouldn't move your hand from my crotch and you still wouldn't let me kiss you, not until we got to your flat.)
He says things out loud, even, at times.
You're beautiful, he says, because he can't say - won't say anything more, so he tells her she's beautiful during the winter mornings, when she steals his shirt and wears nothing else for the rest of the day and doesn't even wear the shirt for some of the time and they only leave the bed the next day, and only if the next day is Monday and she has to work.
She never says I love you either, but sometimes when they're lying in bed at night and he moves, she nestles further up to him and whispers something that sounds a lot like stay, so he kisses her forehead and he stays, because she asked, and because he wants to, and maybe that's enough.
It's like a thing that has a life of its own, this, this something. He won't call it a relationship, that's not what this is. But it's something, definitely, that much he knows.
(Sometimes when he sees her, he kisses her. He always wants to, but that's not the point.)
He thinks he likes her most in the summer, when she puts on dresses and he thinks and feels sometimes in those moments in the summer heat that maybe the Sun comes up only to shine brightly and make her squint until she finally gives in and props herself on her toes to distract him by kissing him, only to take his sunglasses and put them on to shield her eyes from the glaring sun.
He teases her about it endlessly, but then she says she only kisses him when she needs to distract him and there's a note in her voice which makes him believe. Not in her blatant lies and excuses, but makes him believe she wants to believe it herself, so he lets her, because who is he not to.
Or maybe he likes her most later, in autumn, when she starts wearing shawls and tights under her summer dresses and when he starts taking off her shawls so he can kiss her neck, and maybe he likes her even more afterwards, when she smiles and lets him kiss her neck and looks at him like this is all she's ever wanted, green leaves turning into yellow and red leaves in her brown hair, his arm on her back and his promise to make coffee when they get to her flat.
He thinks different words (but never love), but he thinks words such as like and enjoy, and he puts them in sentences.
(I liked you, that time you forced me to go have dinner at that restaurant you like, the one with hundred and eighty two kinds of fish with supposedly different, yet highly unpronounceable names on the menu; I liked you even when you wouldn't let me kiss you all evening, and I liked you, probably more, when you wouldn't move your hand from my crotch and you still wouldn't let me kiss you, not until we got to your flat.)
He says things out loud, even, at times.
You're beautiful, he says, because he can't say - won't say anything more, so he tells her she's beautiful during the winter mornings, when she steals his shirt and wears nothing else for the rest of the day and doesn't even wear the shirt for some of the time and they only leave the bed the next day, and only if the next day is Monday and she has to work.
She never says I love you either, but sometimes when they're lying in bed at night and he moves, she nestles further up to him and whispers something that sounds a lot like stay, so he kisses her forehead and he stays, because she asked, and because he wants to, and maybe that's enough.