breathing fire was never this much fun
This fic has been a long time coming. I had hoped to post it before HBP but, no such luck. Therefore it is now in some sort of vague AU limbo where certain bits are wrong and others turned out to be HBP canon. That said I will err on the side of caution and say that there are HBP spoilers, kind of.
A million thanks to longsunday for the beta.
Title from the Snow Patrol song of the same name.
Ways & Means
Draco didn't notice the figure lurking in the thin shadows lining the corridor until he felt the sharp pinch of a wand against the back of his neck. He heard the swish of robes as they swung back round his assailant, righting themselves after one long stride to corridor's center.
The moment he felt the thin piece of wood on his neck he knew it was Blaise. Not just because he could feel the rough spot on the edge of the darker boy's wand; a wood as brittle and hard as ebony was prone to chipping, difficult to keep smooth at the end. Blaise saw this not as a flaw, but as an asset. "There's no such thing a perfect," he'd croon in the sing-song voice of a mad man and Draco would keep his dissension to himself.
It was the precision with which the tip of the wand was placed between the second and third vertebrae that betrayed his assailant's identity to Draco. The maddeningly steady hand, the slight twist of the wand back and forth; scoring a dull red circle into the skin just below the fall of Draco's hair. A mark, though superficial and largely painless, that would linger for weeks; and with it the eyes of countless other students who silently pondered who it was that a Malfoy would allow to leave such a mark on him.
Blaise would remain standing like this for an eternity. He would wait until the walls of the castle crumbled around them, steadfastly motionless and unyielding, not a movement save the slow rotation of wand until Draco acknowledged his presence by speaking first. Draco had tested him once and spent an entire February weekend - Friday just after Charms to Monday morning Potions - standing in what must have been the draughtiest corridor in the entire castle. Until Draco, in a fit of pique, decided that he didn't care if Blaise hexed him after all and stalked off to Potions. Blaise had shrugged, pocketed his wand, and followed in his wake. Draco had never determined what it had been that Blaise wanted on that particular occasion. Possibly it had been to see how long Draco would stand there.
"What do you want, Zabini? I haven't time for this nonsense right now." The exasperation in Draco's voice was unmistakable, not up to his usual standard of control. He was tired.
A hollow laugh brushed past Draco's neck on the way to his ear. "You won't have time later either. Don't think you can brush me off so easily, Malfoy. I know what you did." Draco stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Blaise saw it, felt Draco's neck press against his wand for a fraction of a second, and he knew he was right. "Well?"
"A well is a deep hole in which one finds water," Draco said.
Blaise gave him a sharp poke which Draco did his best to ignore. "You'd make this a whole lot easier on yourself by cooperating."
"Complying with terrorists is against the Malfoy Code of Conduct."
Blaise raised an eyebrow, which Draco didn't see with his back to him. "Since when do you follow any code of anything?"
"Bending the rules to one's own advantage is also part of the Malfoy Code of Conduct."
"How very convenient," Blaise sneered. "How about following blindly with no thought of consequences? Is that in the Code as well?"
Draco snorted, indignant. "Of course not."
"Show me your arm, Malfoy."
"You've seen it before, use your imagination. I know you're not going to hex me." Draco did his best to sound sure of himself. Two hours of sleep and a night spent in the company of those around whom you must never let your guard down did nothing to steady his nerves.
"Oh, I think I just might." Blaise jabbed his wand so hard into the base of Draco's skull that it pushed the blond's head back, exposing pale skin and bobbing adam's apple. Draco staggered a bit. Only seconds of vulnerability, before he squared his shoulders and stood up straight again. Blaise pressed on, "Show me your arm. There's no point in denying what I already know."
"If you already know then you don't need to see it."
"I want confirmation beyond the shadow of a doubt that Draco Malfoy is an idiot of monumental proportions," Blaise proclaimed gesturing wide with his left hand to portray the magnificence of Draco's stupidity.
Not being able to see Blaise's face was disconcerting and Draco half turned: out of the corner of his eye he could see Blaise behind him, face set in grim determination and something else, something that looked almost like regret, but must have been a trick of the light. Draco quickly turned back round as Blaise landed another sharp jab to his nape. He winced, but only just, as Blaise's wand found the most tender spot on the back of his neck. When Draco spoke his tone was apathetic and tinted with the barest hint of frustration. "It doesn't matter, Zabini. What's done is done. It's of no concern."
"You think it's of no concern? Well it is. Of big fucking concern, you complete wanker. Did you think about this at all? There are consequences here, of the very far reaching and unavoidable sort. I’d never have thought you as being the impulsive type."
Blaise was getting agitated. Draco did his best to remain calm, focusing his gaze on the curve of the corridor in front of him, speaking in as steady and calm a voice as he could muster with Blaise growling down his neck. "It wasn't impulse. My father has been planning this since I was five. What exactly is this in aid of, anyway? You knew this was going to happen."
"So you admit it then? That you are nothing but your father's pawn, and a follower of madmen."
A derisive snort: "You're one to talk. You're madder than the lot of them, and worse, you have no plan."
"Ha!" The sound was more bark than laugh. "You think I'd tell you my plans?"
"If you had them you'd tell me."
"Amazing. You sound so sure of yourself and you're so wrong. Show me your fucking arm, Malfoy." Draco turned around completely this time. Blaise's eyes had gone dark, so dark the blue was gone all together and they appeared just black, black and very nearly feral. A person who'd not seen that look before - or possibly one who'd had more than two hours sleep the night before and was therefore thinking straight - would have run from it.
Draco spoke with his jaw tight, mouth barely moving, voice low and just this side of controlled. "I am so fucking sick of your assumption that you have some sort of hold over me. I am a Malfoy. No one has a hold over me." His palms were sweating and his hands nearly shaking; this was not the day to have such a confrontation with Blaise, he was exhausted and not terribly interested in continuing this line of conversation to it's inevitably bitter end. "Now kindly piss off."
Blaise smiled, an expression that was far from comforting - all teeth and secret knowledge - pocketed his wand and looked the other boy up and down. Draco looked nearly disheveled; his tie loose, the top button of his shirt undone revealing a glimpse of collar bone and pale skin, only one clasp of his robe fastened, yet a thin veneer of superiority still clung to him. "Quite the master of self delusion, aren't you?" Blaise snarled as he hurled himself at Draco. Draco should have seen this coming. But he hadn't. He wasn't himself today.
Draco's back hit the floor with a sickening thud knocking the wind out of him completely and all he could do was gasp. Blaise, his knee firmly planted on Draco's chest, wrenched back the left sleeve of Draco's robe and the shirt under it, paying little heed to the way his nails bit skin in the process. The three livid marks left by Blaise were not the only ones crisscrossing the Dark Mark on Draco's forearm. It looked almost as if he had been trying to scratch it off.
The sneer on Blaise's face couldn't have said I told you so more if he'd actually said the words. He half nodded at Draco's arm then looked him square in the face. "Should have thought of that before, shouldn't you?"
Draco didn't answer. There was nothing to say. He felt the prickle of sweat between his shoulder blades despite the cold stone against his back and closed his eyes against the glare hovering above him. Neither moved for long minutes. The mark under Blaise's palm was unaccountably warm and seemed to shift almost imperceptibly from time to time, a thing alive under the skin, unnatural in the most sinister way possible.
Blaise had known that Draco would go through with it. He'd known the instant Draco had started spouting pureblood rhetoric again shortly after his father had been released from Azkaban on a technicality (if you could call the Minister of Magic being bought by a madman a technicality). Blaise had known somewhere in a place in the back of his mind that he didn't often go that in the end Draco would accept the place his father had set aside for him. He'd just hoped Draco would come to his senses.
This was not how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to, well not run away together. Blaise wasn't running, he wasn't trying to run, he was just looking for something different, and Draco needed it too. But this was then end of that now, wasn't it. He hadn't really thought they'd run away together, that sounded like something he wasn't going to put to words even in his own head. He just needed to get away and there was something about Draco that made Blaise want to bring him along.
Underneath him Draco was saying something.
"This-" a flick of the wrist that would have been a wave of the hand, the arm, had Blaise not had a death grip on Draco's forearm. "This ridiculous fucking excuse for a school. All shite our fine old headmaster has been spouting about house unity and banding together in the dark days ahead. Fucking N.E.W.T. s. This is all just practice.
"This-" Draco wrenched his arm out of Blaise's grip earning himself another angry red scratch as Blaise held on tighter before letting go, and shoved his arm in Blaise's face. Draco's tone was nearly calm, not resigned but knowing, in the manner of one who believes completely in what he is saying and won't even stop to consider any other possibilities. He clenched his fist with each this pushing his arm closer to Blaise's face. "This is reality. This is honor. This is purity. This is what will keep things as they are."
The sight of the Dark Mark had never much bothered Blaise previously. He'd thought it stupid more than anything, foolhardy. Those who allowed themselves to be branded in such a way, to pledge their allegiance so fully to something beyond oneself deluded fools, every single one. Now up close, feeling the heat of it on his face, the Dark Mark was something different entirely. Something worse.
Blaise leaned forward, pushing his knee into Draco's chest until the blond folded up, a breathy grunt issuing from his mouth and arms going slack at the sudden increase in weight. Blaise grabbed both pale wrists this time, pushing them into the floor above Draco's head. "'Things as they are' are pretty fucked up."
Draco's mouth opened but no sound issued forth and Blaise moved back, letting up the pressure on Draco's chest. Draco took a sharp breath. "You can pretend all you want that things are how you want them to be," Draco's tone was clipped the voice of someone stating a simple unchangeable fact to a child, "but it still doesn't change anything."
"You're wrong," Blaise said. "You've never been more wrong." Draco's only answer was a snort of derision.
Could it be possible that it was Blaise who'd been deluding himself? It couldn't. No one, Malfoy or otherwise, was going to tell Blaise how it was. How it was for Blaise was how he wanted it to be. 'Things as they are' to Blaise were not necessarily the same as 'things as they are' to anyone else. He knew how to get what he wanted, it was one of his greatest skills. He knew how to bend others to his will in such a way that they thought it was their idea. He-
So did someone else. Someone who not only excelled at bending others to his will but marked them as his own once he'd got them there. Blaise shook his head as if to dislodge unwanted thoughts. None of that had any effect on him though, no real effect. Not if he didn't want it to.
Blaise shifted his weight, placing one knee on either side of Draco's chest and leaned forward again, crushing Draco's wrists between sharp nails and rough stone. "Besides," Blaise hissed his voice not more than a whisper, teeth inches from Draco's ear, "I never did take much stock in others' concept of reality."
Draco flinched, just slightly, and bit his lip as Blaise traced the edge of his ear with his tongue then followed along his jaw; the faintest hint of stubble there. Just a breath across Draco's lips, almost gentle. A nip, a bite, not quite hard enough to draw blood, on the hint of collar bone peeking from under Draco's shirt. Draco moved his head a fraction of an inch, stretching his neck, giving Blaise better access.
Blaise stopped abruptly and sat back on his heels. There were half moons of red on Draco's wrist between palm and black snake head where Blaise's nails had bit skin. Blood was welling up; ruby red on white skin, ancient stained glass straining against bright sunlight, too bright even in the dark corridor.
Seizing the offending arm again Blaise brought it to his lips and licked the blood away, slowly tracing each rivulet with the tip of his tongue. Draco squirmed beneath him, whether trying to get away or get closer Blaise didn't know, didn't care. The grin that split his lips when he looked down at Draco was all teeth and not a bit amiable. Blaise released Draco's arm and brushed his hand across Draco's cheek, pushing his head to the left and running one blood sticky finger along Draco's neck leaving a red streak where he would have laid the knife had he decided to cut Draco's throat.
Draco stiffened but didn't try to move away.
Blaise grinned again, teeth too white against lips flecked with blood as his finger continued it's journey. He applied just enough pressure on Draco's adam's apple to elicit a half choked gasp, then down across clavicle, pushing the green and silver silk of the sloppily tied tie aside. Then: each button roughly pushed back through it's button hole leaving ghosts of bloody fingerprints on the edge of Draco's white shirt. Until there was nothing but blond fuzz and sharp hip bones through pale skin above black belt and trousers. The ghost of a moan escaped Draco's lips as Blaise insinuated his fingers between leather and fabric and unbuckled Draco's belt. Draco couldn't stop himself canting his hips up toward the hands that were soon making short work of unfastening his trousers.
Draco was already half hard when Blaise roughly pushed his trousers down and out of the way. Blaise brought two fingers to his own mouth sucking them in and out rhythmically, once, twice, his eyes not leaving Draco's. Draco's cock bobbed in reply as he watched Blaise from hooded eyes, his breathing a shade or two heavier than normal.
How Blaise managed to bend Draco's legs up to his chest with his trousers still around his knees Draco wasn't sure. He barely felt the strain in his thighs from being in such a position as Blaise ran those two warm moist fingers across Draco's perineum and pushed against the pucker of skin beyond. His breath caught in his throat when the fingers pushed in as far as they could go, withdrew and were replaced with Blaise's cock. Draco grappled for purchase, fingernails rasping on stone as Blaise pounded into him, his spine scraping against stone with each thrust, changing speed each time Draco almost had the rhythm, the animal sounds of skin against skin and rasping gasping breath echoing down the corridor and. Oh this would be almost nice if he could just, yes, get his hand round his own cock and.
Draco came seconds before Blaise collapsed on top of him with a shuddering moan.
Neither moved for minutes, laying in a tangle of sweaty limbs and uneven gasping, until Draco shifted his legs to roll over and free himself from Blaise’s weight. Draco lay there, facing away from the other boy, cheek, chest, groin, pressed to cool rough stone. At some point in the future he was going to be sore. His robe, his shirt, his trousers, were all surely ruined and there was a twinge in his left arm where empty eyes would be staring back at him if he turned his head. He didn't. He had no regrets. A Malfoy never has regrets.
Blaise was moving beside him and at the sound of leather on metal, buckle being fastened, Draco rolled over again pulling his own trousers up as he turned. He felt a mess and surely looked it, but did his best to ignore that fact. Blaise was standing above him, fully clothed, a bit of wetness on his shirt and a predatory grin the only signs belaying the activities of minutes before.
The look on Draco's face was unreadable, far away, grey eyes gone dull and barely meeting Blaise's as Draco leaned back on his elbows and crossed his legs at the ankles feigning nonchalance. Blaise's eyes traced the length of Draco's body, half hungry half calculating, as if he was cataloging the sight before him for future reference. His gaze turned cold when he reached Draco's left arm; Dark Mark and drying blood, now more brown than red, on the half moons over top of it. Draco hastily covered his arm with his robe.
"You do realize what this means?" Blaise said. "This is the end, my friend. No more. This is the last time this is ever going to happen. There is no we after tonight, Draco."
Draco looked Blaise square in the face for the first time that evening. "There never was a we, dear Blaise. There never will be."
"Good," muttered Blaise, smoothing the wrinkles on his shirt. He half turned away, then stopped and turned back, quiet for a minute, considering. He looked down and scratched the back of his neck. When his gaze rested on Draco again he looked almost sorry. "I can't say I'll miss you exactly," he said "but I will notice when you're not around."
Blaise's footsteps down the corridor sounded like one heavy door shutting after another, solid and final. The last echoing step the latch.
A million thanks to longsunday for the beta.
Title from the Snow Patrol song of the same name.
Ways & Means
Draco didn't notice the figure lurking in the thin shadows lining the corridor until he felt the sharp pinch of a wand against the back of his neck. He heard the swish of robes as they swung back round his assailant, righting themselves after one long stride to corridor's center.
The moment he felt the thin piece of wood on his neck he knew it was Blaise. Not just because he could feel the rough spot on the edge of the darker boy's wand; a wood as brittle and hard as ebony was prone to chipping, difficult to keep smooth at the end. Blaise saw this not as a flaw, but as an asset. "There's no such thing a perfect," he'd croon in the sing-song voice of a mad man and Draco would keep his dissension to himself.
It was the precision with which the tip of the wand was placed between the second and third vertebrae that betrayed his assailant's identity to Draco. The maddeningly steady hand, the slight twist of the wand back and forth; scoring a dull red circle into the skin just below the fall of Draco's hair. A mark, though superficial and largely painless, that would linger for weeks; and with it the eyes of countless other students who silently pondered who it was that a Malfoy would allow to leave such a mark on him.
Blaise would remain standing like this for an eternity. He would wait until the walls of the castle crumbled around them, steadfastly motionless and unyielding, not a movement save the slow rotation of wand until Draco acknowledged his presence by speaking first. Draco had tested him once and spent an entire February weekend - Friday just after Charms to Monday morning Potions - standing in what must have been the draughtiest corridor in the entire castle. Until Draco, in a fit of pique, decided that he didn't care if Blaise hexed him after all and stalked off to Potions. Blaise had shrugged, pocketed his wand, and followed in his wake. Draco had never determined what it had been that Blaise wanted on that particular occasion. Possibly it had been to see how long Draco would stand there.
"What do you want, Zabini? I haven't time for this nonsense right now." The exasperation in Draco's voice was unmistakable, not up to his usual standard of control. He was tired.
A hollow laugh brushed past Draco's neck on the way to his ear. "You won't have time later either. Don't think you can brush me off so easily, Malfoy. I know what you did." Draco stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Blaise saw it, felt Draco's neck press against his wand for a fraction of a second, and he knew he was right. "Well?"
"A well is a deep hole in which one finds water," Draco said.
Blaise gave him a sharp poke which Draco did his best to ignore. "You'd make this a whole lot easier on yourself by cooperating."
"Complying with terrorists is against the Malfoy Code of Conduct."
Blaise raised an eyebrow, which Draco didn't see with his back to him. "Since when do you follow any code of anything?"
"Bending the rules to one's own advantage is also part of the Malfoy Code of Conduct."
"How very convenient," Blaise sneered. "How about following blindly with no thought of consequences? Is that in the Code as well?"
Draco snorted, indignant. "Of course not."
"Show me your arm, Malfoy."
"You've seen it before, use your imagination. I know you're not going to hex me." Draco did his best to sound sure of himself. Two hours of sleep and a night spent in the company of those around whom you must never let your guard down did nothing to steady his nerves.
"Oh, I think I just might." Blaise jabbed his wand so hard into the base of Draco's skull that it pushed the blond's head back, exposing pale skin and bobbing adam's apple. Draco staggered a bit. Only seconds of vulnerability, before he squared his shoulders and stood up straight again. Blaise pressed on, "Show me your arm. There's no point in denying what I already know."
"If you already know then you don't need to see it."
"I want confirmation beyond the shadow of a doubt that Draco Malfoy is an idiot of monumental proportions," Blaise proclaimed gesturing wide with his left hand to portray the magnificence of Draco's stupidity.
Not being able to see Blaise's face was disconcerting and Draco half turned: out of the corner of his eye he could see Blaise behind him, face set in grim determination and something else, something that looked almost like regret, but must have been a trick of the light. Draco quickly turned back round as Blaise landed another sharp jab to his nape. He winced, but only just, as Blaise's wand found the most tender spot on the back of his neck. When Draco spoke his tone was apathetic and tinted with the barest hint of frustration. "It doesn't matter, Zabini. What's done is done. It's of no concern."
"You think it's of no concern? Well it is. Of big fucking concern, you complete wanker. Did you think about this at all? There are consequences here, of the very far reaching and unavoidable sort. I’d never have thought you as being the impulsive type."
Blaise was getting agitated. Draco did his best to remain calm, focusing his gaze on the curve of the corridor in front of him, speaking in as steady and calm a voice as he could muster with Blaise growling down his neck. "It wasn't impulse. My father has been planning this since I was five. What exactly is this in aid of, anyway? You knew this was going to happen."
"So you admit it then? That you are nothing but your father's pawn, and a follower of madmen."
A derisive snort: "You're one to talk. You're madder than the lot of them, and worse, you have no plan."
"Ha!" The sound was more bark than laugh. "You think I'd tell you my plans?"
"If you had them you'd tell me."
"Amazing. You sound so sure of yourself and you're so wrong. Show me your fucking arm, Malfoy." Draco turned around completely this time. Blaise's eyes had gone dark, so dark the blue was gone all together and they appeared just black, black and very nearly feral. A person who'd not seen that look before - or possibly one who'd had more than two hours sleep the night before and was therefore thinking straight - would have run from it.
Draco spoke with his jaw tight, mouth barely moving, voice low and just this side of controlled. "I am so fucking sick of your assumption that you have some sort of hold over me. I am a Malfoy. No one has a hold over me." His palms were sweating and his hands nearly shaking; this was not the day to have such a confrontation with Blaise, he was exhausted and not terribly interested in continuing this line of conversation to it's inevitably bitter end. "Now kindly piss off."
Blaise smiled, an expression that was far from comforting - all teeth and secret knowledge - pocketed his wand and looked the other boy up and down. Draco looked nearly disheveled; his tie loose, the top button of his shirt undone revealing a glimpse of collar bone and pale skin, only one clasp of his robe fastened, yet a thin veneer of superiority still clung to him. "Quite the master of self delusion, aren't you?" Blaise snarled as he hurled himself at Draco. Draco should have seen this coming. But he hadn't. He wasn't himself today.
Draco's back hit the floor with a sickening thud knocking the wind out of him completely and all he could do was gasp. Blaise, his knee firmly planted on Draco's chest, wrenched back the left sleeve of Draco's robe and the shirt under it, paying little heed to the way his nails bit skin in the process. The three livid marks left by Blaise were not the only ones crisscrossing the Dark Mark on Draco's forearm. It looked almost as if he had been trying to scratch it off.
The sneer on Blaise's face couldn't have said I told you so more if he'd actually said the words. He half nodded at Draco's arm then looked him square in the face. "Should have thought of that before, shouldn't you?"
Draco didn't answer. There was nothing to say. He felt the prickle of sweat between his shoulder blades despite the cold stone against his back and closed his eyes against the glare hovering above him. Neither moved for long minutes. The mark under Blaise's palm was unaccountably warm and seemed to shift almost imperceptibly from time to time, a thing alive under the skin, unnatural in the most sinister way possible.
Blaise had known that Draco would go through with it. He'd known the instant Draco had started spouting pureblood rhetoric again shortly after his father had been released from Azkaban on a technicality (if you could call the Minister of Magic being bought by a madman a technicality). Blaise had known somewhere in a place in the back of his mind that he didn't often go that in the end Draco would accept the place his father had set aside for him. He'd just hoped Draco would come to his senses.
This was not how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to, well not run away together. Blaise wasn't running, he wasn't trying to run, he was just looking for something different, and Draco needed it too. But this was then end of that now, wasn't it. He hadn't really thought they'd run away together, that sounded like something he wasn't going to put to words even in his own head. He just needed to get away and there was something about Draco that made Blaise want to bring him along.
Underneath him Draco was saying something.
"This-" a flick of the wrist that would have been a wave of the hand, the arm, had Blaise not had a death grip on Draco's forearm. "This ridiculous fucking excuse for a school. All shite our fine old headmaster has been spouting about house unity and banding together in the dark days ahead. Fucking N.E.W.T. s. This is all just practice.
"This-" Draco wrenched his arm out of Blaise's grip earning himself another angry red scratch as Blaise held on tighter before letting go, and shoved his arm in Blaise's face. Draco's tone was nearly calm, not resigned but knowing, in the manner of one who believes completely in what he is saying and won't even stop to consider any other possibilities. He clenched his fist with each this pushing his arm closer to Blaise's face. "This is reality. This is honor. This is purity. This is what will keep things as they are."
The sight of the Dark Mark had never much bothered Blaise previously. He'd thought it stupid more than anything, foolhardy. Those who allowed themselves to be branded in such a way, to pledge their allegiance so fully to something beyond oneself deluded fools, every single one. Now up close, feeling the heat of it on his face, the Dark Mark was something different entirely. Something worse.
Blaise leaned forward, pushing his knee into Draco's chest until the blond folded up, a breathy grunt issuing from his mouth and arms going slack at the sudden increase in weight. Blaise grabbed both pale wrists this time, pushing them into the floor above Draco's head. "'Things as they are' are pretty fucked up."
Draco's mouth opened but no sound issued forth and Blaise moved back, letting up the pressure on Draco's chest. Draco took a sharp breath. "You can pretend all you want that things are how you want them to be," Draco's tone was clipped the voice of someone stating a simple unchangeable fact to a child, "but it still doesn't change anything."
"You're wrong," Blaise said. "You've never been more wrong." Draco's only answer was a snort of derision.
Could it be possible that it was Blaise who'd been deluding himself? It couldn't. No one, Malfoy or otherwise, was going to tell Blaise how it was. How it was for Blaise was how he wanted it to be. 'Things as they are' to Blaise were not necessarily the same as 'things as they are' to anyone else. He knew how to get what he wanted, it was one of his greatest skills. He knew how to bend others to his will in such a way that they thought it was their idea. He-
So did someone else. Someone who not only excelled at bending others to his will but marked them as his own once he'd got them there. Blaise shook his head as if to dislodge unwanted thoughts. None of that had any effect on him though, no real effect. Not if he didn't want it to.
Blaise shifted his weight, placing one knee on either side of Draco's chest and leaned forward again, crushing Draco's wrists between sharp nails and rough stone. "Besides," Blaise hissed his voice not more than a whisper, teeth inches from Draco's ear, "I never did take much stock in others' concept of reality."
Draco flinched, just slightly, and bit his lip as Blaise traced the edge of his ear with his tongue then followed along his jaw; the faintest hint of stubble there. Just a breath across Draco's lips, almost gentle. A nip, a bite, not quite hard enough to draw blood, on the hint of collar bone peeking from under Draco's shirt. Draco moved his head a fraction of an inch, stretching his neck, giving Blaise better access.
Blaise stopped abruptly and sat back on his heels. There were half moons of red on Draco's wrist between palm and black snake head where Blaise's nails had bit skin. Blood was welling up; ruby red on white skin, ancient stained glass straining against bright sunlight, too bright even in the dark corridor.
Seizing the offending arm again Blaise brought it to his lips and licked the blood away, slowly tracing each rivulet with the tip of his tongue. Draco squirmed beneath him, whether trying to get away or get closer Blaise didn't know, didn't care. The grin that split his lips when he looked down at Draco was all teeth and not a bit amiable. Blaise released Draco's arm and brushed his hand across Draco's cheek, pushing his head to the left and running one blood sticky finger along Draco's neck leaving a red streak where he would have laid the knife had he decided to cut Draco's throat.
Draco stiffened but didn't try to move away.
Blaise grinned again, teeth too white against lips flecked with blood as his finger continued it's journey. He applied just enough pressure on Draco's adam's apple to elicit a half choked gasp, then down across clavicle, pushing the green and silver silk of the sloppily tied tie aside. Then: each button roughly pushed back through it's button hole leaving ghosts of bloody fingerprints on the edge of Draco's white shirt. Until there was nothing but blond fuzz and sharp hip bones through pale skin above black belt and trousers. The ghost of a moan escaped Draco's lips as Blaise insinuated his fingers between leather and fabric and unbuckled Draco's belt. Draco couldn't stop himself canting his hips up toward the hands that were soon making short work of unfastening his trousers.
Draco was already half hard when Blaise roughly pushed his trousers down and out of the way. Blaise brought two fingers to his own mouth sucking them in and out rhythmically, once, twice, his eyes not leaving Draco's. Draco's cock bobbed in reply as he watched Blaise from hooded eyes, his breathing a shade or two heavier than normal.
How Blaise managed to bend Draco's legs up to his chest with his trousers still around his knees Draco wasn't sure. He barely felt the strain in his thighs from being in such a position as Blaise ran those two warm moist fingers across Draco's perineum and pushed against the pucker of skin beyond. His breath caught in his throat when the fingers pushed in as far as they could go, withdrew and were replaced with Blaise's cock. Draco grappled for purchase, fingernails rasping on stone as Blaise pounded into him, his spine scraping against stone with each thrust, changing speed each time Draco almost had the rhythm, the animal sounds of skin against skin and rasping gasping breath echoing down the corridor and. Oh this would be almost nice if he could just, yes, get his hand round his own cock and.
Draco came seconds before Blaise collapsed on top of him with a shuddering moan.
Neither moved for minutes, laying in a tangle of sweaty limbs and uneven gasping, until Draco shifted his legs to roll over and free himself from Blaise’s weight. Draco lay there, facing away from the other boy, cheek, chest, groin, pressed to cool rough stone. At some point in the future he was going to be sore. His robe, his shirt, his trousers, were all surely ruined and there was a twinge in his left arm where empty eyes would be staring back at him if he turned his head. He didn't. He had no regrets. A Malfoy never has regrets.
Blaise was moving beside him and at the sound of leather on metal, buckle being fastened, Draco rolled over again pulling his own trousers up as he turned. He felt a mess and surely looked it, but did his best to ignore that fact. Blaise was standing above him, fully clothed, a bit of wetness on his shirt and a predatory grin the only signs belaying the activities of minutes before.
The look on Draco's face was unreadable, far away, grey eyes gone dull and barely meeting Blaise's as Draco leaned back on his elbows and crossed his legs at the ankles feigning nonchalance. Blaise's eyes traced the length of Draco's body, half hungry half calculating, as if he was cataloging the sight before him for future reference. His gaze turned cold when he reached Draco's left arm; Dark Mark and drying blood, now more brown than red, on the half moons over top of it. Draco hastily covered his arm with his robe.
"You do realize what this means?" Blaise said. "This is the end, my friend. No more. This is the last time this is ever going to happen. There is no we after tonight, Draco."
Draco looked Blaise square in the face for the first time that evening. "There never was a we, dear Blaise. There never will be."
"Good," muttered Blaise, smoothing the wrinkles on his shirt. He half turned away, then stopped and turned back, quiet for a minute, considering. He looked down and scratched the back of his neck. When his gaze rested on Draco again he looked almost sorry. "I can't say I'll miss you exactly," he said "but I will notice when you're not around."
Blaise's footsteps down the corridor sounded like one heavy door shutting after another, solid and final. The last echoing step the latch.