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21 December 2015
As always, Ron watches Draco in the midst of psychological meltdown, this time in the frozen clime of Norway, after an exhausting mission involving a ghost ship, three trolls, and a cursed box of unknown purpose. The box sits on the frozen ground between them.
Draco shouts into his mobile like it’s wronged both him and his family. “Quarantine? It’s Solstice, you absolute arsehole.” Draco paces the snow-dusted floor of the forest glen. As he listens, his expression turns from perturbed to murderous. A lift of his eyebrows, a little wobbly quirk of his chin. Ron likes observing this now familiar transformation. Likes it even better when Draco locks in, then unloads.
Now, Draco’s teeth are bared. Classic.
“It’s a box, not a pox,” Draco snarls. “Has your microscopic brain transposed the letters?”
Another pause. Ron leans against one of the ubiquitous Norwegian pines, arms crossed, and watches Draco go completely mental. Harry always spurs Draco to madness. Hermione says it’s on purpose. That everything the two of them do to one another is, in fact, on purpose. And the purpose is to lead the other to mental ruin.
“A week. It’s the 21st, Potter. And it’s our year to have Teddy for—don’t you lecture me on my lack of availability. You’re in bloody Rotterdam. And you set my schedule, you fucking twit.”
It goes on. Ron watches. Hermione’s recent theory is that Draco and Harry’d been fucking for more than a year before things fell apart in the summer; she’d said this when she was drunk on half a bottle of red, Pansy sprawled out, asleep on her lap.
“You won’t have to sack me, you cocksucking four-eyed freak! I fucking quit.” Draco proceeds to insult Harry’s deceased family members, his spellcasting ability, his shoddy racing broom, lacklustre flying, and finally, his inability to maintain an erection for more than five minutes. The call ends abruptly. Draco shoves his mobile in the pocket of his fur-lined cape. A shock of blond hair falls over his eyes, and he flicks it back. He looks, for a moment, like a king; like a fairytale creature stepping out of the Scandinavian wilds.
When Draco steps closer, however, his eyes are bloodshot, tears on his cheeks. He dabs them with the back of his hand, then sniffs. “Don’t tell Granger.”
“I won’t,” Ron lies. Ron takes in Draco’s continuous sniffle, the stray bits of leaves in his hair, the worry etched onto his pale features. He suppresses the urge to close the distance between them, to pull Draco close and tell him— Ron knows how vicious it is to love someone who can’t love you back. Instead, Ron settles on, “Harry can be a real cunt, can’t he?”
Draco pushes out a wet laugh. There’s snot crystallizing on his upper lip. It doesn’t quite ruin the ice prince thing he has going on, but it brings him down a notch. Closer to Ron’s capacity for cheering him up.
“Come on, Malfoy. We’re going to freeze our bloody bollocks off if we don’t get back to that shithole safe house.”
“That would be the plan.” Draco sniffs. “Cursebreaking team five is redoing all the shithole wards in the shithole safehouse in case it’s contaminated by that bloody box.” Draco’s sour expression is rapidly turning bereft. “Potter’s rented a cabin, three hundred miles north. Was supposed to go there with that girl—”
“Calliope,” Ron supplies. “The Auror trainee.”
“Right. Well. Calliope the Auror trainee wised up. Harry says we should stay at the cabin since it’s already rented.”
“How long?”
“A week.” Draco’s frown deepens. “I won’t be able to see Teddy. Or Mother. Or—”
“Cheer up, sweetheart.” Ron claps him on the shoulder. “We’ll muddle through.”
“What? Do you have a way to get us out of this mess?”
“No, ‘course not. But I bet that place is loaded to the gills with food. I’ll cook for you the whole time. Sing carols. Hot chocolate. All that.”
“Oh what fun.” Draco hoists the box onto his slender hip. He glares at Ron. “Just what I always wished for. Every Yuletide, I said, ‘Oh, Father Christmas, please stick me in a tiny cabin in the arse-end of nowhere with an enormous bloody Weasley.’”
“There’s your Christmas spirit.” Ron tousles his fine hair. It sticks up like a white-blond halo. “Knew it was in there.”
Draco glares harder, then marches off in the direction of their first Apparition point. Ron follows. He starts whistling Christmas carols as the wind picks up and the sky starts to spit snow.
22 December 2015
It takes them a solid two hours to get to the second Apparition point. Then there’s a faulty Portkey that lands them at the bottom of a bloody fjord. Ron is dreadfully cheerful about the entire debacle even when a wolf starts howling through the trees.
As Ron casts industrial-grade warming charms and whistles an interminable loop of ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ hiking upward with seemingly limitless enthusiasm, Draco bows under the weight of the horrible box. With every shrinking charm Draco’s lobbed at the miserable thing, it’s gotten bigger and more awkward. He might be hallucinating from the cold, but it also seems the emerald swirls on its lid are more intricate and its white inlay—which appears, sickeningly, to be carved bone—throbs with a faint source of inner light.
“Don’t be daft. I’ll carry it,” Ron says. It’s the fourth or fifth time he’s said it. Draco’s almost willing to give in, but Ron’s always playing the strongman, chivalrous to a fault, lugging around heavy stone artifacts and hitting Draco with his battering ram of protective magic. Show off.
“Fuck off.” Tears sting at the corners of Draco’s eyes; his stomach flips miserably. “I’m a man, too. I’m just as broad and muscly as you are.”
“No. You’re not.” Ron casts a Lumos that hangs ahead of them like a streetlamp, lighting the path upwards. “But I had noticed your dangerously stubborn streak and your pathological need to prove yourself. Is that what makes you a man?”
“You spend too much time with Granger.”
“She’s my ex-wife.”
“That’s really no excuse.”
Ron only shrugs.
Draco hoists the box, trying to re-balance it on his hip. It’s heavier now, making his fingers cramp. Really, he might quit. In all his years as a cursebreaker, he’s never gotten recognized by the department at their yearly awards ceremonies. And now he has to take orders from Harry. He needs—god, he needs—the answer pulses right on the tip of Draco’s brain, but Ron is grabbing his shoulder and pointing ahead. The glint of glass flashes ahead.
“There!” Ron squeezes Draco, hard. “There we are. We’ll be in as quick as you like.”
Draco rolls his eyes. His shoulders burn, and he stumbles under the weight of the box. How is it heavier now? He stumbles upwards, cold sweat pouring down his temples and pooling beneath his collar. When they stumble inside, he drops the box and kicks it for good measure. “Ow, fuck. My toes.”
“Erm, Draco. It’s—you said Harry rented this place?”
“What is it now? Is the whole cabin cursed?” When Draco turns, he sees what Ron is seeing. “Oh, bugger off. Fucking Potter.”
The cabin is—well, it’s a surprise, though it really shouldn’t be. It’s one large room with a small, shiny kitchenette, two overstuffed armchairs, and a bookshelf filled with romance novels and covered in an enormous array of red roses. The bed is equally enormous, taking up a good quarter of the room. The bedclothes are harlot-red, the entirety of the silken quilt and supple furs covered in pink rose petals.
“What the fuck. What the fuck!” Draco stops towards the bed and vanishes each and every reeking flower. Ron, ever-placid, crosses his arms and watches. With all the flowers banished, Draco spies a note on the bookshelf. Draco picks it up with shaking hands and reads: “For Harry and Calliope; congratulations on your engagement.”
“He tossed her out last month,” Ron says. “Cabin must’ve been non-refundable.”
Draco makes a rageful sound and hurls the note towards the ceiling, catching it with an Incendio before it falls. Ron watches, massive and implacable as ever. Like a very handsome, very calculating statue who fancies itself far more evolved than Draco will ever be.
When Draco returns to himself, still seething, Ron has moved onto aiming spells at the bed, the rose petals swirling upwards and vanishing. “Can’t change it because of the rental wards.”
“Can’t change what?”
“There’s only one bed,” Ron says affably. A spell pulls back the covers to reveal pink sheets. “AirBnB has an anti-spell clause in their contracts now. Too many wizards trying to sneak in extra people. But we’ll fit alright.”
Draco’s cheeks go hot. “I’m not shacking up in Potter’s love nest! I’ll sleep on a chair.”
“No, you won’t. We’ve done it a hundred times.”
Ron’s right. They’ve done it during so many of these foolish quarantines. And Draco inevitably wakes up hard, with the scent of large man in his nose. He’s not sure he can take the sexual frustration when he can’t go out and pull a bearded Swede at a club. “I don’t want to. I want to be in my own bed. In my home with all my nice things. And I want Christmas morning with my family.”
“I’ll try not to be too sexually alluring. And I’ll tend you like royalty.” Ron winks at him.
Draco doesn’t point out that those two statements are baldly incompatible. Draco’s so sexually deprived, he’s likely to spring a stiffy if Weasley brings him tea, especially sporting three days worth of stubble. Instead, Draco stomps his foot so hard the floorboards tremble. “How are you so bloody calm? You don’t care that you’re missing Christmas because Potter thinks we should be quarantined and—and stuck in his arctic fuck shack?”
“I love Christmas as much as anyone.” Ron shrugs. The firelight frames him: the copper of his still-thick hair, the softening wrinkles beside his eyes, the sardonic twist of his often filthy mouth. “But Hugo and Rosie are in Melbourne this year. It’s—it’s really utter shit without them. I’d honestly rather be here with you in Harry’s stupid fuck shack, sad as that sounds.”
“Oh. Yes, well.” Draco clears his throat. The furnace clanks on, and the low hum of warming magic bursts to life. “I can’t say I blame you. I am excellent company.”
“You’re half-decent these days.” Ron’s eyes are intense on him. It doesn’t sound like an insult—more that it’s laden with something else. He sends another spell at the firewood and adds a log to the hearth. “Less of a tit these days.”
“Less of a tit.”
“Yeah.” Ron hits the bed with one last clearing spell. “You’re a reasonably likeable tit.”
Draco doesn’t respond, but he feels oddly wobbly looking at Ron, watching him enlarge his trunk and methodically sift through his soft cotton shirts and knitted socks. He huffs after a bit, when Ron doesn’t turn to pay him more attention, and goes about unshrinking his own trunk. He yanks out his pyjamas, then heads to the bath, setting the water to a volcanic temperature and soaking for nearly an hour, wetting his hair again and again.
Thankfully, Ron is asleep when he ambles out. His shirt is off, revealing constellations of freckles and strange, interconnected scars on his back and arms. He’s long and wide, his hair mussed, his hands huge and tangled in the pink sheets. Draco lets himself stare for a few moments; it’s rare that he can really take Ron in, rare that he can see the whole of him separate from work, separate from their interwoven trauma and the shadows of their pasts.
Between the armchairs, the box emits a low hum. Its bone inlay pulses with green light. Before Draco can think, before he can caution himself against it, he tiptoes across the room and crouches in front of it. He lifts the lid gingerly, expecting to see something—a haunted dagger or a crown or even a sheaf of unsent letters. Instead, it’s entirely empty, the wood inside polished to a high shine.
“Useless, meddling piece of empty shit.”
The lid falls closed with a thunk, and Ron rustles in the bed, but doesn’t wake. There’s a faint tingling on Draco’s skin, but nothing more. A load of rubbish, all of it. He shouldn’t be here. He should be preparing for his splendid Christmas with Mother and Teddy and Andromeda. He stomps around, making tea and forcing several biscuits down, before attempting to sleep in one of the chairs with several furs. But it’s oddly cold, even so close to the hearth, even with the warming magic circulating. The furs slip every time he nods off.
Some hours later, Draco gives up and crawls into bed, just inches from Ron. For a moment, he feels wobbly again, like he’s falling, sinking into something, a great maw opening beneath him. But when he closes his eyes, the feeling goes.
He sleeps easily, still in the same position when he wakes to Ron puttering about in the kitchen, the sky just beginning to lighten outside. He pulls the covers over his head and huddles deep in the warmth of the bed.
22 December 2015
It’s a natural Weasley instinct to make breakfast in times of stress. So Ron cooks, glancing occasionally back at the tuft of blond hair on the pillow, the long body piled beneath the fur blankets and quilts. The vision is almost—foggy. Like a lens made intentionally fuzzy for a Muggle film. Whatever it is makes Ron’s stomach jump pleasantly each time he draws his eyes that way. Even though it’s just Draco. Even though they’ve been working together for over a decade, and trapped in situations far worse than this.
But there’s a low, thrummy pulse in the small quarters of the cabin, like the bass line of a hidden song, playing just beneath his threshold of hearing. Outside, it’s started to snow, flurries caught in the scant light that looks more like dusk than midday.
Bacon sizzles. Potatoes crisp in the skillet. Garlic and onion caramelize with mushrooms. The eggs flip cleanly, cheery orange yolks warming at their centres. The food had appeared in the icebox sometime overnight, along with a note from Harry: Enjoy!
He wonders, as he puts on the kettle, if this was the reserve for Harry’s proposal weekend with Calliope. Fucking hell. And then, looking back at Draco, he thinks that Callie and Draco had almost certainly overlapped.
Ron chucks the note into the bin. “Love you, mate, but you’re a tosser.”
When Draco wakes, he slinks out of the bed like a cat, all long limbs and lean lines. He stretches, and the collar on his pyjamas falls dangerously open, exposing one pink nipple and a dusting of blond hair over his chest. The pale light of snowy dawn falls over him when he stands, and Ron can see the faint traces of the scars on his chest, his torso. He wonders, idly, just how far down they go. In all their time together, Draco’s never let him see.
“What in Merlin’s name are you looking at?” Draco’s cheeks are faintly pink. He turns and buttons his shirt. “My hair’s a mess, Weasley. I can’t be seen at this hour.”
“Am I Weasley again, now that we’re stuck here?” Ron swallows around a new tightness in his throat. He casts a warming charm on two piled-high plates, moves their tea to the table..
“Yes. You’ll be Ron again once I’m properly fed.” Draco twists his hair into a messy bun and drops the shirt from his shoulders. Lean muscle, all of him. All of his lines make sense together, like he’s a work of living art.
Ron’s ears go hot. Had Draco always looked like that? He sifts through a decade of memories; cases that led them to Rome and Prague and Cairo, near-death experiences in clinics and hospitals littered across the continent. Ron holding Draco’s hands as they pulled jagged green curses from his wand arm. Draco, at Ron’s bedside, when he woke after a six-day coma. Their fraught debriefings with Harry; Draco storming off, pale and bright as a beacon.
“Did you hear me?” Draco sifts carelessly through Ron’s trunk and pulls on his Magpies shirt, then summons a pair of his own jeans. Ron has to look away from that before he starts thinking about Draco’s legs, starts wondering if they were always that long.
“Erm, no. Busy making sure you’re fed, like a proper young lad.” Ron sets their plates at the table, puts out two steaming mugs and a small pitcher of milk. “So no, I didn’t hear.”
“I said I’m borrowing your clothes indefinitely. If no one’s seeing me for the holiday, I’m not touching a shirt with buttons unless it’s made of silk and meant for sleeping.”
“Right.” Ron can see the buds of Draco’s nipples beneath the worn shirt. “That’s—well. S’alright.”
“Is it?” Draco looks amused.
“Yeah, ‘course. The rule is there are no rules.” Steam curls above their plates, the air between them easy and fragrant. “We can do whatever we like.”
“What happens in Norway, I suppose.” Draco sits at the table with an airy sigh. He steals a piece of bacon from Ron’s plate and takes a delicate bite.
“What does happen in Norway?”
Draco’s shoulder lifts in a lazy shrug. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
23 December 2015
Over ten years, Draco has been forced to endure the unexpected as Ron Weasley’s partner. Breaking a level-eight curse at the Britain-France Alliance Ministry Gala, stuffed into a cupboard near the stage so they wouldn’t be seen by either the victim or the perpetrator. Stranded in an abandoned church at the edge of a windswept plain in Latvia. Roaming the moors in their animagus forms, his dove grey cat curled next to Ron’s fox at night, an echo of their own unlikely alliance.
But the space between them has never felt so heavy.
Yesterday, the snow piled high, covering forest and rock with a crisp blanket of white. Still, Ron had traversed the fjord in search of evergreen boughs. He’d laid them across the mantle and in front of the hearth, layering each with a spell that made them sparkle as if they’d brought a bit of the snow inside with them. There was a very fine whiskey after that, and Christmas programmes on the telly. Ron had explained each one, animated, gesturing with his hands. His dad had loved that actor, his eldest brother the other, the ensuing argument over which Christmas special was better. He’d talked, half-drunk, of the Weasley yule logs and hearth fires of yore, and Draco had, haltingly, spoken of Teddy and Andromeda and Mother. He doesn’t mention Harry. Or last year’s fatal fight that had started the end of it all.
They’d fallen asleep near midnight, a pile of pillows between them—but Ron had somehow thrown them all off the bed by morning. When Draco woke, Ron’s arms were around him, and he could feel the beat of his strong Weasley heart. He told himself he wouldn’t get hard, that he wouldn’t think about burrowing into the crook of his neck or humping his enormous thigh. But Draco’s resolve hadn’t lasted. He’d extracted himself, stumbling to the ensuite for a desperate wank in the shower. He’d forced himself to think of nothing; of blank, empty space, until he came in great, arcing spurts, steam pouring over him as Ron banged about the kitchen.
Today continues in much the same manner: Muggle programmes on the telly, more furs pulled from the cupboard as the temperature drops outside, Ron retrieving another log, snow caught in his hair, cheeks pink when he returns.
“My hero,” Draco says, huddled deep in furs in one of the armchairs. “Keeping me warm and full.”
“Speaking of full, do you want the Cornish game hens or the salmon?” Ron looks over his shoulder at Draco. His eyes are as clear as the sky in spring, his ears red, either from the cold or the compliment. It’s hard to tell. “There’s mutton, but I’m saving it for Christmas.”
Christmas. Something strikes Draco about it, a ghost of the disappointment he’d felt when he’d spoken to Harry in the forest. But he can’t grasp the shape of his anger; the thought is now as harmless as a smooth pebble in a stream.
“Cornish game hens. With the salad you made last night—with the pears. Is there a white wine? Or a red, if you can make mulled.”
Ron gazes at him, knelt there by the fire. He’s lit up, in flame and shadow, the contrast of his black shirt stark against his skin. His stubble has filled in; in a few days time, it’ll be a full beard. “Trying to liquor me up?”
“No, I—” Heat rises in Draco’s cheeks, stretching all the way to his ears. It occurs to him that it’s been months, maybe, since he’s actually been off a case. Since he’s shared a meal with someone outside of his family. And the way Ron is watching him, the way his eyes flick down, as if he’s trying to discern the shape of Draco beneath all the furs. “I’d just—I’d like some wine.”
“Coming right up, your majesty,” Ron says. He stands, brushes his jeans off, spruce needles falling in his wake and vanishing with a flick of Ron’s fingers. A prickle rolls down Draco’s spine, and he glances to the corner by the door, his eyes skimming over the dark-hued box.
Later, after two bottles worth of mulled wine and chocolate truffles dripping with cream, they climb into bed, nothing between them. When Ron snuffs out the lights, the cabin is inky dark apart from the dying crackle of the fire. It’s cold, colder than it should be in a cabin built this far north; it should be airtight in here, the under-floor heat working with the built-in charms. But it’s so cold he can feel it in his bones. Draco’s mind tries to catch on something, tries to parse it like he does with complex curses and mountains of casework. Something about emerald and bone and dark, old wood, worn by time, awkward in his arms. The box. When he tries to think of it, he sees only a hazy-edged spot, in stark contrast to the realness of the bed and its furs and the firm warmth of Ron’s hand when it falls on his shoulder.
“C’mere. M’freezing.” Ron’s nose presses against his neck, and Draco—shivers. “Just stay still. I’ll use you for warmth. S’all you’re good for, anyway.”
“You’ll do no such—” Draco gasps when Ron’s cold hand slips beneath his shirt to press against his belly. “Weasley!”
“Warm,” he says. “You always run so hot. Like you do when you’re a cat. I like it when—remember? I used to do this.”
Draco dissolves into a fit of laughter when Ron nuzzles into his neck. “This is against Ministry regulations.”
“Fuck their regulations. We’ve done it before.”
Draco’s throat goes tight and full. “Done—what, exactly? Is there something I’m not remembering?”
“Shared a bed. Or a den. That Turkish basilica where all we had was warming charms and your half-arsed sheltering charm. I held you just like this.”
“It’s different.” Draco can’t say how it’s different, only that it is. That it’s here and not just here, but now. But the words don’t mean anything when they roll around in his mind. And anyway, Ron says—
“S’not different. S’just like always.” Ron’s thumb grazes the skin just above his navel. A sea of goosebumps ripples outward and Draco suppresses a shudder. But Ron’s breathing is going even and—after all this time, Draco knows when sleep takes Ron, the even rhythm of his breathing, the steady reassurance of his heart. And it’s cold and dark, and no one will know but the two of them here.
Draco lets Ron curl into his warmth, as he’s done so many times over the years. Yes, for the most part, they haven’t been in a Norwegian cabin that still smells of rose petals. But it’s not unfamiliar, the weight of this body. Not even something they haven’t done. And Draco’s always felt this sort of tension with Ron, ever since their uneasy truce in Draco's first year of training. It was never the same as what he’d felt for Harry; Ron had never made him feel that destructive sort of misery. Just a steady pull, like the path of a river, carrying Draco like a current for all these years.
There’s been a shift, somehow. Not that it matters because—Ron is Ron, and Draco is Draco. And they’re partners. Friends. And that should mean—it should mean they’re safe to do this, to have this. And now Draco is yawning and finally warm, and Ron’s arms are safe and strong and, for tonight, they’re his.
Draco’s body settles like a sigh beneath Ron’s hands and the heat of minty breath on his neck. And he thinks no more after that.
24 December 2015
Ron wakes with his cock resting against Draco’s arse cheeks. This might actually violate several Ministry regulations. Sure, said arse cheeks are separated by two layers of silk and the thin jersey of Ron’s boxers. But Draco’s arse is just right there, and it’s always drawn the eye.
It feels right to leave his cock there, to let it pulse between those supple curves. Wet wicks into the fabric from the tip of Ron’s dick, and he shivers. When he moves—he’s trying to pull away, he swears—the bell-end of his dick has a mind of its own, and he hitches forward. The head of Ron’s cock slips out of his pants, and rubs against the crinkled waistband of Draco’s pyjamas.
The sensation is almost—electric. Like when he walks on his shaggy rug with soft feet and is met with the shock of a cold door handle, except his body is the feet and his dick is his hand—no, that doesn’t quite work. He should actually pull away, roll out of bed, maybe hide on the floor until morning—but Ron’s hips and belly are tight and full of wanting—and the wanting, it’s not exactly new, more like it’s cracked open and spilling inside of him. He stifles a groan and lets his hips buck once. Just once—and maybe one last time before—
“Weasley. Wake up.” An elbow slams backwards into his solar plexus, and Ron lets out a cry.
“Why would you” —Ron lets out a whimper— “do that, you pointy fucking—”
“You were molesting me with that Beater’s bat between your legs.”
“Was not,” Ron says, even though the evidence is right between his legs, still jarringly erect.
“If you’re not putting it to good use—” Draco’s eyes wander to Ron’s waistline, and lower, to the sliver of flushed skin peeking out of his pants. “Well. Don’t tease me with it. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Putting it to good—” Ron splutters. His ears have gone very hot, which he knows means the rest of him is red and blotchy. “You’d know. If I was—erm.”
“If you were what?” Draco’s smile makes him look even more like a cat than ever. “Enlighten me.”
Draco is teasing him—trying to get him to say it, Ron’s mind supplies, but he doesn’t know what it is or why his cock is trying to throb its way out of his underwear. Or why, as he looks at Draco, at the pinking of his cheeks and the wet promise of his mouth, this moment feels inevitable. Like all the years between them have narrowed, bringing the scope of their joined lives to this nexus, right in the arse-end of Arctic nowhere.
Ron clears his throat, pulling on all of his strength to tell Draco—it’s not like that, I didn’t mean anything, this whole adventure is above board despite the meals and the bed and the furs and the late-night cuddling and his ramrod-hard cock. Instead, he says, “You’d know if I was going to fuck you.” It’s a mistake—Ron knows it is—but he can’t help brushing a stray lock of hair behind Draco’s ear. “Because I’d have you begging for it.”
Ron rolls out of bed, away from Draco’s shocked expression. Heat climbs in his abdomen, cock still tenting his pants—and he’s certain his face looks as red and desperate as the rest of him feels. But he manages to saunter to the bathroom and close himself inside for a shower and a—now medically necessary—wank.
***
When Ron emerges from the loo, Draco is nowhere to be seen. The kettle is still steaming on the stove, a mug of tea left out for Ron, along with a decent looking porridge. All of it is under a warming charm.
In all the years of their partnership, Draco’s periodic disappearances have been—well, a sticking point for Ron. Not that he worries over the posh, insufferable tit. Ron has had more than a lifetime worth of trauma packed into very few years and he—he likes to keep tabs. That’s all it is.
In keeping with his genetic predisposition for being absolute twattery, Draco never gives single shit about Ron’s panic. In fact, Ron suspects Draco runs off to drive him fucking mental.
This time, Draco’s cloak is gone, and Ron’s boots along with it. The tatty mittens Hermione knitted for Ron two Christmases ago are also missing, along with several of the furs. And—Christ—the bloody snowshoes. “You fucking wanker.”
It takes Ron precious minutes to cobble together his own get up: he has to mend the other pair of snowshoes, coax his trainers into half-decent boots, and make up for the mittens—and hat and scarves—that Draco fucking stole. All the while, scenarios play out in Ron’s head—Draco unconscious in a snow-filled ravine, Draco falling through the ice of the nearby river, Draco with his lips blue and his eyes unmoving. It’s stupid—Draco’s more or less competent and unquestionably well-outfitted, but it doesn’t stop Ron from barrelling out the door and trundling down the stairs. The snow is marred, snowshoe prints headed in an easterly direction, towards a copse of spruce trees. Ron follows the path, stepping carefully in each snowshoe print, until he spots a cloaked figure and senses the thrum of Draco’s magic. He hurries forward until Draco spots him, grey eyes peeking from between two red scarves.
A mittened hand beckons, followed by the bellow of Draco’s voice. “Help me, Weasley! We need a tree.”
“A what?” Ron’s words plume into the frozen air as he slogs towards the trees. “It’s negative however many degrees.”
“Five.”
“What?”
“Negative five degrees. It’s not even that cold. When Mother and I went to Antarctica—”
“You what! When?”
“Are you a myna bird? What, what, what.” Behind Draco is a swirl of his crisp, white magic, encircling a spruce. “I’m attempting to convince this tree to copy herself, but she’s proving awfully stubborn.”
“You’re convincing the tree to—copy itself. Like—like doubling a recipe.” Ron shouts over the wind.
“Why? Is there another way to get a Christmas tree?”
“Hermione got one from Tesco. Isn’t that—”
“Is this why she divorced you—well, everything makes sense now.”
“Hey—you know it hasn’t got anything to do with—trees.” Draco’s grin is apparent beneath his scarves. “You really are the worst person I’ve ever met. Not even George stoops that low, mate.”
The lower scarf falls, revealing Draco’s ruddy nose and pink lips. Christ, Ron might need another wank. “Are you telling me I’m special, Weasley? I am, aren’t I?”
“You are a special case. The most fucking special in all the land.” Behind Draco, the great spruce splits in half with a crack that echoes down the frosted slopes. A copy of the tree hovers in the air next to the original, tall and fat and entirely covered with snow. “And I’m beginning to doubt you’ve ever seen a Christmas tree.”
“I’ve seen plenty. Mother always—” The tendrils of Draco’s magic falter, and a moment later, Draco falls to his knees, hand raised like he’s trying to hold the bulk of the tree. “Mother always” —he pants— “copied the trees so they—so they wouldn’t die—Christmas is about renewal, you see.”
“Right.” Ron shoots a shrinking spell at the faltering tree, adding in another to make it lighter. When the tree is stable, hovering next to Draco, Ron offers Draco his hand and lifts him to his feet. Those grey eyes are centred on Ron again, and Ron feels his heart do something horribly disconcerting, like a leap and a skip all at once. “Saved your arse again.”
“After you humped it this morning with your massive—”
“Don’t disappear again. Not when we’re in the bloody Arctic Circle.”
“Fine. You’re no fun, you know that.” Draco marches ahead, and the tree bobs after him, like a Crup following a child to school. Even in his stupid amount of gear and snowshoes, he looks almost regal, cloak flowing out behind him and billowing in the wind. Ron thinks, for a moment, that it’s odd, this feeling, that it’s mixed in with the snow and the ice and the strange twilight sky, and the waxing moon hanging like a pendant over the horizon. The box, he remembers, is supposed to be cursed, and they’re supposed to be quarantined for a reason, and it must be throwing them off but—the thought falls away, as he watches Draco’s long legs, and the puff of snow behind him as he walks.
It’s probably not important.
***
The fire crackles when they step inside. Beside the hearth is a small tree stand. On the table are two mugs of hot chocolate, sitting alongside Draco’s porridge, which is now loaded with currants and chopped walnuts, topped with a dusting of cinnamon.
A shadow of confusion crosses Draco’s face. “Did you—did you doctor my porridge?”
Ron pulls off his hat and mittens, warming his fingers in front of the fire. The explanation sits in his throat; he can feel it there, like a lump of food incompletely swallowed. “No, I—I wish I had. I was so worried, and I—”
“Because I definitely thought you were wanking while I was off exploring the wildnerness.” Draco shucks off his many layers, humming a little melody to himself, one Ron doesn’t recognize. It seems to hum alongside the magic in the cabin, darting around the fragrant fruit and cinnamon and the billows of steam.
“You were flouncing about in the snow like an absolute plonker. And I was—” He scrubs his hand over his face. There’s something—there. Just there. It’s moved, actually, from between the chairs to beside the door, and now it’s sitting just behind the tree stand. “I was—well, I did wank.” The words fall out of his mouth, unwanted, as if they’re flowing around the thing he’s actually trying to say. “But not about you. I mean it—sort of. Christ. I can’t think.”
“Oh, you don’t have to hide it. Everyone has a wank about me now and again.” Draco sits heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. He’s stripped down to his indecently tight long johns. Ron can’t keep his eyes off Draco’s legs. The elegant curvature of his ankles. Even his feet are pretty.
“I can’t—that’s not what I—I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“Of course you weren’t. Sit with me, Weasley.”
“I’m Weasley again, am I?” Ron’s mind is a jumble when he sits across from Draco. His eyes aren’t entirely grey, are they? More grey-blue, like the sky just before it snows. His lashes are light brown, but they’re tipped with gold and very long. Ron realises he’s just holding a spoon stuffed into his porridge when Draco clears his throat.
“Makes me feel nostalgic.” When Draco takes a sip of his hot chocolate, it leaves a hint of chocolate on his upper lip. “Like when I joined the force.”
Ron laughs. He tries a bite of porridge. When he looks in the direction of the bare tree, he sees only the snow melting on the floor in sad puddles, and not what he’s actually looking for.
“You were—Merlin, you were so fit. You looked good, I mean.” Ron’s mouth hangs open when he says it, and Draco looks as pleased as his cat self after catching a bird. “I mean—”
“I was rather desperate to be assigned to you.” Draco’s expression shifts from self-satisfied to—shocked. Just as shocked as Ron feels. “Because of your experience in the field,” Draco adds. “And so I could take the piss routinely, and you couldn’t kill me for it. At least not legally.”
“I meant—” Ron swallows hard. “What I meant to say was—Christ. Something else entirely.”
“Don’t worry. Your reputation as a ladies’ man is unmarred. You can’t help having eyes, I suppose.” Draco licks the last bit of porridge from his spoon. “Tell me, are you seeing anyone?”
Ron’s eyes widen. The room hums with magic; Ron can almost hear the rhythmic thump of its power, but it’s not human. Draco would never—they don’t talk about these things. Never have. “Ladies’ man? No, I—” Ron clamps his mouth closed, but the next words come, anyway. “I’ve only shagged three people since—”
Draco leans forward, an impish look on his face. “What a slut you are, Ronald. Three whole women in a year.”
“Two of them were blokes.” The words come out in a rush, and just as Draco’s eyes go wide, Ron stands. “I’m going to see what I can—with the tree. It’s—well, you brought it in here, like an absolute muppet. So I’ll be tidying your mess, like usual.”
Draco doesn’t say anything, but Ron can feel him staring at his back from across the room.
***
There’s lamb stew on the hob, simmering; seared vegetables with currants and bleu cheese sauce beside it, and something flaky and fruity in the oven. The scents of cinnamon and butter hanging above the kitchen like a cloud. Ron ambles from dish to dish, seemingly at random. But Draco knows by now there’s a method to his madness. Ron’s repast will start to come together well nigh professionally at the eleventh hour: food plated, courses planned, and wine matched. He could well have been a chef if he hadn’t opted for cursebreaker.
Draco observes, swirling his glass of red, eyes wandering over the muscled planes of Ron’s back, the full meat of his thighs and arse. His size is more generous than it was at twenty, but any padding is accompanied by ample muscle and sheer brute strength. It’s hard not to see it in a different light now that Draco knows—well, what he knows. Ron is—well. He likes men. Or won’t shove them out of bed if they happen to fall in.
The flush won’t leave Draco’s cheeks as he tracks Ron across the tiny kitchen. He drinks a swallow of wine, and another. Ron is humming as he cooks, jovial. It sounds at first like a carol, but then it’s more like the music of the cabin itself, the rush of the wind beyond, the lap of the distant sea.
Draco bites his lip. He wants to speak, to say something profound or—acknowledging of Ron’s admission. But there’s something odd in the air and he knows it’s going to come out jumbled and wrong. So, he pours another glass of wine and watches Ron’s powerful body. He keeps on like that until Ron is slicing bread and ladling stew, and something bubbles up from inside of him and out of his lips—
“What did you do with these men?” Draco clamps his mouth shut, but it’s too late.
Ron stills. “What men?”
“The men you shagged,” Draco says without meaning to. “Merlin, I mean—did you suck each other off or—” Draco slaps a hand over his mouth.
Ron is looking at him, ladle in hand, stew dripping to the floor. He’s gone so pale his freckles look like speckles of paint on bare canvas. But he, too, seems caught in the trap. “Yeah. That’s all, though.” His eyes are very wide. “I mean—I didn’t. Shag them. Like with my—”
“Beater’s bat?” Draco has somehow unclamped his mouth and is very unfortunately speaking again. “You could knock a bludger into space with that thing. I hardly blame them for being shy.”
Slowly, Ron turns back to his cooking. “Not that I didn’t want to,” Ron says to the vegetables. “God, please make me stop. Next I’ll tell you what I was thinking about when I was tossing off.”
Draco puts his head in hands, slumping over his wine. “What were you—”
“Getting between your legs. With my face.” Ron drops the ladle.
Before Draco can replay, he launches up out of his chair, knocking over his glass, poured out like blood across the table. He makes a beeline for the bathroom and slams the door, turning on the shower to make a barrier of sound. He slumps against the wall and tries to think.
***
Dinner starts as a rather more solemn affair than Ron had hoped. As he cooked, he’d imagined what he’d say to Draco about the whole slip up about the blokes Ron had shagged. Well, not shagged exactly—but, well, it was sex. Just no—penetration. He was planning to apologize, to tell Draco he wishes they’d talked about Ron’s newly realised sexuality, since Ron knows nothing about men besides desperating wanting to get his cock inside certain ones. Then he’d say—I really think it’s that thing, you know the thing, in the corner, behind the tree, that was between the chairs—why does it keep moving—that’s made me think of you that way. And I am overstepping bounds and I can’t help it and maybe we should take a step back from holding each other tenderly in the dark of the Arctic night.
But then, there’d been—well. A much worse version of that conversation. And now the most awkward Christmas Eve dinner of his life. Maybe the second most.
Draco emerges from the bathroom with his hair loose over his shoulders, which Ron tries—and fails—to have absolutely no feelings about. All that fine blond hair, damp from the humidity of the small shower. He’s wearing Ron’s Magpies shirt again, loose on his slightly slimmer frame. But as much as Ron gives him shit, Draco is broad and masculine, and his long hair serves to accentuate his sharp lines and his height. His regal face. The heartbreaking bow of his mouth.
They stand there for a moment, a few strides away from one another, Draco glancing down at his hands and opening his mouth to say something—apologetic, Ron guesses.
“It’s fine.” Ron heads him off at the pass. “It’s the—you know—the—” The word turns to ash in Ron’s mouth. Not only because of the magic that is clearly preventing them from discussing it, but also because it’s not entirely true, is it? It’s the curse. And it’s not.
“Right.” Draco’s brows are pulled together as he sits and sips his new glass of wine. “Some sort of—compulsion.” Draco says this with some difficulty. “You’ll forgive my impropriety.”
Ron nods. He bites his tongue. The compulsion magic—he can tell that’s what it is now that Draco’s said it—wants Ron to confess a great many truths hidden deep in their decade of partnership. But he’s able to stop himself from speaking on the matters of wet dreams and wanking—and, worst of all, Harry’s jealous insinuations about Ron and Draco’s relationship last Christmas. Merlin, that conversation makes a good deal more sense in light of—everything. Ron gets as far as opening his mouth several times, but, instead, he eats, watching the slim curve of Draco’s mouth, stained red with wine.
It’s a shock when Draco breaks the silence. “It’ll be clear tonight. Very clear. Prime for viewing the lights.”
“The lights?” Ron just keeps looking at Draco’s lips. His brain can’t grab onto the idea of lights of any kind since all he sees is Draco, and the twinkle of the crudely decorated tree behind him, the flicker of the fire catching highlights in his hair.
“The Northern ones. Pretty, twinkly lights in the sky.”
Ron nods slowly. “We could go out. A ways from the—the—”
“Yes,” Draco says softly. “There are loads of furs. Warming charms.”
“Yeah. Alright.”
***
25 December 2015
It takes nearly an hour for Draco to prepare for their outdoors excursion. Despite his quick exit this morning, he’s apparently meticulous when Ron is involved. Ron is a little lightheaded by the time Draco drapes him in furs—perhaps from the lingering magic in the cabin, but more likely from Ron’s ridiculous confessions and the fact of Draco himself, handsomely bundled and avoiding Ron’s eyes.
“Well. That’s as good as we’re going to get. We might not even see them,” Draco says. “But we’ll be able to separate ourselves from the—”
“Yeah.” Ron’s head hurts when he thinks of it, a pain right behind his left eye. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Draco nods curtly.
It’s cold—maybe fifteen below—when they finally step outside, snowshoes thumping down the stairs, incandescent trails of magic stumbling along behind them as their charms struggle to keep up with the arctic air. They walk in silence until the cabin is well behind them and the only light is the moon, fat and bright as a new Knut.
Ron feels the curse diminishing when they dip into a small ravine, the cabin all but a speck behind them. Still, they walk a little further, Ron stepping carefully in Draco’s tracks. Beyond their meagre footfall, the land is an unmarred blanket of shimmering white.
The box, Ron should say. All of that back there—it wasn’t us.
But field and forest are utterly quiet, and Draco is unshrinking an enormous blanket and a thermos of hot chocolate. He sits, and Ron thumps down beside him. An owl calls mournfully, once. Then again. Another responds, and they listen. Ron should probably say it now—that magic has been meddling with them, branding them with new, unchecked desire, and it will all go back to normal when they’re home. But the words won’t come.
Draco, for his part, pours hot chocolate into mugs like this is an ordinary assignment, where they’ve been stuck together for days and need to escape their confines before they tear each other limb from limb.
“It should be soon.” Draco drinks, then licks the chocolate from his lips.
“What should be soon?” Ron is staring at the curve of Draco’s lips and his cheeks, pink with cold, at the ski slope of his nose. At the interplay of soft and sharp.
Draco huffs. “Look up, you daft sod.”
And so Ron does. At first, he sees nothing but stars. There’s Orion with his belt and sword, and Jupiter brighter than he’s ever seen it. “What am I—”
“The horizon.” Draco touches Ron’s face with a mittened hand and Ron—Ron feels something more than he ought this far from the cabin. But before he can process the ache in his gut, he spots a pale flicker of light just above the treeline. “Keep watching.”
Draco’s hand falls to his shoulder and stays there, as the swaying line of light creeps higher, picking up pigment as it expands. White-green at first, then pale mint, to near-neon. As the lights grow, they arch across the sky, high in the bitter air.
“It starts with just a thread. Sometimes I went looking with Mother when we traveled in the north.” Draco’s voice has gone soft and wistful. “At first, it’s the merest suggestion. Then it becomes something more.”
The lights shift and undulate above, like a river winding across the sky. The snow reflects it all, a mirrored surface bathing the white-tipped spruce trees in shades of eerie lime and violet, like the forest itself is a reflection of its atmospheric magic. It’s hard to know where to look now that the lights fill their line of vision entirely. So Ron gazes at Draco, at the play of light and shadow across the planes of his face, the deep grey of his irises in this midnight light. He’s lovely like this; intent and rapturous.
Draco must notice, must feel it, because he glances back. When he meets Ron’s eyes, he looks almost defiant, chin lifted. The desperate urge to touch him is overwhelming, and there’s nothing here to stop them, nor magic to push them one way or another. So Ron tugs off a mitten and cups Draco’s cheek, thumb pressed against that pointy chin that he’s hated and loved in equal measure. All these years.
“Do you think it’s midnight?” Ron lets his fingers wander to the flyaway strands of blond hair escaping Draco’s hat.
“Just past.”
Ron’s heart thuds like a drumbeat in his throat. “It’s Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas,” Draco says. His face is lit up with a kaleidoscope of colour and shadow, the hills behind glowing green and blue and magenta-red. “I’ve a box for you. It’s very shiny. A little troublesome.”
Ron laughs. “A little.”
“And a little humiliating.” Draco swallows. “Ron—”
“I’m not humiliated.” Ron brushes his thumb along the line of Draco’s jaw. “I’m a red-blooded lad, and I had a tug thinking about your arse. Then your mouth. Then your arse again.”
“It was the box.” Draco’s voice is low and quiet. “It’s cursed. You don’t—you never—”
“I thought you were fit a long while before I ever touched a cock.” Ron lifts Draco’s chin and brushes his lips against Draco’s. “Wasn’t a box that did that, was it? Unless you’ve been sneaking around my office with cursed artifacts for the past ten years.”
“Ah.” Draco lip wobbles. Ron is done with trying to pretend he doesn’t want to kiss it. “My plan worked then.”
“Oh? It must’ve.” Ron leans forward, his hand winding around Draco’s neck to settle in the fine hair at his nape. When they kiss, Draco tastes of chocolate and red wine. The slip of Draco’s tongue against Ron’s, the shiver that rolls through him, the flutter of his eyelashes, and the soft sigh as he draws Ron closer—all of this might be only tonight, only in this distant, frozen forest at the edge of the world, but Ron knows he’ll recall this moment as long as his memory lasts. He’ll remember the smell of the furs and the dry chill of the air, the clank of the thermos against their empty mugs, and the solid weight of Draco on his lap.
“Do you want me, really?” Draco’s lips brush his ear.
“Yes.”
“Then lie back.”
“What?” Ron keeps kissing him, trying to cast warming charms that’ll stave off the frosty bite of the air. He can’t stop kissing Draco, in fact, might never stop. But Draco is pushing him down, summoning another blanket from his bag. “Don’t worry, Weasley. I’m better than a warming charm.”
Ron’s back hits the ground. It’s cold, but Draco has an extra blanket draped over his head and shoulders and he’s straddling Ron and—god, yeah he can probably survive the cold with the warmth and weight of Draco’s body, that mischievous half-smile, and the hands working their way down until he’s cupping Ron’s cock through layers of fleece and fur. Is he—oh, fuck.
He’s half hard when Draco undoes his flies, harder still when Draco slips a hand down his pants and grasps him, thumb pressing just beneath the head of his dick.
“You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” That’s not the box, meddling in their words. That’s pure Draco Malfoy, smug and triumphant, with Ron’s cock in his hand.
“You’ve seen it before,” Ron says, breathless.
“Not like this.” Draco deftly pulls Ron’s cock out and disappears beneath the blanket, and the only thing left to do is gaze into the fiery blush of the arctic sky as Draco sucks him down.
“Fuck, holy fuck—” Ron’s back arches, hips bucking up hard enough that Draco grumbles, but he doesn’t pull off. “God, sweetheart, you’re—fuck, you couldn’t wait, could you?”
Draco groans in response, the vibration hitting Ron’s cock and making him—God—so hard. Ron slips his hand beneath the blanket and pulls off Draco’s hat so he can touch Draco’s hair, the silken slip of it, so he can feel the slow bob of Draco’s head as he takes Ron all the way to the back of his throat. Ron’s only ever been with one person who can take it all like that—and that was just once, a lifetime ago. He doesn’t think about that, doesn’t ever—so he lets his hand rest on the curve of Draco’s skull and sinks into the smooth, skilled heat of his throat. He clears his mind and does as Draco said, watching the open sky. The bitter winter air is seeping in at all of Ron’s edges; his back and chest and face are cold, but his cock is drenched in warm and wet, slipping past Draco’s tongue and his soft palate, his tip nuzzling the back of Draco’s throat. Ron makes a shocked sound whenever Draco swallows around him. Heat builds and builds—nipples tightening, toes clenching, hand tangling in Draco’s hair and pulling—as the night sky shifts to violet-red. Ron’ comes, far before he means to, crying out—Malfoy, holy fuck—and Draco shudders beneath his hand before swallowing every last bit as Ron’s cock jerks and releases inside.
Draco is breathless after, wiping his reddened lips as he drapes himself over Ron’s body. Ron tucks himself back in and hauls Draco up into another kiss, tasting the hint of briny sharpness on Draco’s lips. They kiss lazily for a while, until their lips are cold and they can barely see from the puffs of their breath.
“You’re good at that,” Ron says, nuzzling Draco’s cold nose.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Working up to the best?” Ron snakes his hand down Draco’s body, fingertips dancing along his waistband.
Draco slaps his hand away. “You wish, Weasley.”
“Let me take care of you.” Ron kisses him hungrily and goes for Draco’s button again. “I’m brilliant at wanking. I’ll get you off in a—”
“You can get me off in bed. Where proper people fuck.” He pushes Ron’s hand away again—and Ron brushes against a wet patch. The mad reality sinks in, and a grin spreads across Ron’s face.
“You already—”
“No.” Draco is shaking off his blanket, pulling together his bag, and standing, boots and hat and cloak all askance. “No, I didn’t.”
It’s so hot that Ron is stunned for a second, gazing up at Draco’s incensed face. Ron catches his hand, smiles. Bites his lip. He feels giddy. “You’re a right little tart, aren’t you?”
Draco is quite pink, from tip to tail, polar light highlighting his flush. “If you don’t want me to leave you out here—”
“You wouldn’t.” Ron climbs to his feet and pulls Draco close, tipping his chin and kissing him again, slow and purposeful. “I think you like me. And you want to suck my cock again.”
“Don’t push your luck, Weasley. Get me back to the cabin and tuck me in bed. Then we’ll see.”
25 December 2015
The magic remains; they can both feel the lazy thrum of the curse. But the box lets itself be seen now; it’s on the hearth when they step inside, shaking off snow like rowdy Crups. In the night, when Draco wakes and stumbles to the bathroom, it’s there by the door, the white of its bone inlay glowing as if it were bragging about its achievement. Little does it know that Draco doesn’t need convincing to suck cock. It is, along with wizarding fashion and complex cursebreaking, one of his foremost talents. A passion, even. That singular event doesn’t signify any enormous change, apart from Draco fucking up his only real friendship at work, which, again, is no spectacular feat for a Malfoy.
When Draco slides back into bed, he tries not to rustle the covers or push Ron’s enormous hand off of his pillow. He lies still in the dark and rubs his feet together beneath the blankets to generate a tiny bit of warmth. The magic is still fucking about with the ambient temperature, it seems, so Draco is shivering now, inching closer to Ron’s giant, fuzzy body, as close as he can without touching. It’s not quite enough—Draco’s teeth are chattering—and Ron is making sleepy sounds, reaching out with his meaty paws and grabbing Draco’s waist, pulling him close. Draco hates how he loves this, how small Ron makes him feel, when Draco is well over six feet and quite broad—
“It’s me,” Draco whispers. “It’s Draco. In case you—” He doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to say. In case you changed your mind? In case you were just after a one off and want to forget this night entirely? Well, a two off, given the clumsy, half-drunk—and utterly glorious—fumbling that had happened towards two in the morning.
“C’mere.” Ron yanks him closer, his hand cupping one of Draco’s arsecheeks and squeezing lightly.
“Ron.”
Ron’s lips are against Draco’s collarbone. “Your arse belongs in a bloody museum.”
“It’s me,” Draco says again, helplessly. It has to be the bloody stupid box, making Ron think he wants something that he doesn’t, that he can’t. It seemed so real just hours ago, and now it seems—fragile. Like the words Ron said couldn’t be anything other than a lie. No one who really knows Draco has wanted to stay tied to him. “You don’t want me, Ron.”
“Stop it.”
“What?” Draco squirms, but Ron holds him tight. “Stop—what?”
“Wriggling away. Won’t work. I’m stronger.” Ron sucks lightly on the delicate skin of his neck, until it starts to hurt, and Draco knows it’s going to leave a mark. And—God, his cock jumps at the thought. “And I haven’t had a decent shag in ages.”
“If that’s all this is to you—I can’t. I can’t—”
“No, it’s not all I want. Stop.” Ron’s eyes are open now, and he’s pushed Draco’s shoulder down against the bed.
And, oh Merlin’s tits, Draco is stiffening up like a schoolboy. He’s panting, too, and probably quite pink. “I don’t. Want you,” Draco grits out. “Not like—”
“I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“The box is fucked. It wants to put us in danger. To break this—you and me. It wanted us to say—”
“It wanted us to tell the truth.”
“Everything you said. It was the truth?”
“Yeah. Then I told you more of the truth out there, like dominoes falling. I think I get it now—it’s not cursed. It’s an amplifier.” Ron’s face is now very close to his. “I didn’t say anything I hadn’t thought. And I didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”
“And how long are you going to want it?” Tears spring to Draco’s eyes. It’s the magic, forcing the words to bloom from inside of him. “How long will you yank me around? And then what, Weasley? Who’s my partner then?”
Ron lets go of his shoulder and cups the side of his face, his hand a warm, reassuring weight. “I’m not him. I’m not Harry.”
“I know.” Draco’s voice is hoarse.
“And you’re not a guy I picked up on an app—”
“You picked them up on—an app?”
“Yeah, that’s—that’s not important.”
“It most certainly is. I want to know everything. I mean it.”
Ron laughs and takes Draco in his arms, pressing his full body weight into him. “Later. Later, I will. I promise.”
“You’d better. I need wanking fuel.”
“How about I fuck you instead?” Ron nestles his hips between Draco’s and rocks gently. “That’s what you like, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” The truth is inescapable here, their bodies hot and hard and tight together. “But you can’t—you can’t leave me. I’m serious, Weasley. I can’t—”
“I never have before. And I won’t—I wouldn’t.” Ron grinds down, hitching his cock against Draco’s and sighing, like it’s a relief, like it’s exactly what he wants. Like Draco is. “You’re a habit I can’t break, darling. I’ll always follow you.”
“You’d better not be—lying to get me to” —Draco’s back curves against the plush pile of the mattress— “spread my legs.”
Ron kisses Draco’s neck, mouths at his collarbone, then moves lower, nuzzling his chest hair and biting down on one nipple. “M’not. Lying.” Ron’s tongue dips into his navel, and lower, down to his balls. He says something incoherent when he pushes Draco’s legs up, bending him practically in half. “Your taste,” Draco thinks it is, just before Ron presses his tongue between Draco’s cheeks. “Fuck, Draco.”
Ron’s facial hair is more beard than stubble; it’s grown rapidly since they’ve been here. And it tickles Draco's rim, scratches deliciously against sensitive skin. It’s clear Ron hasn’t done this—or hasn’t done it often—but, Christ, that makes it better. Dirtier and messier and more wrong. He’d have Ron do this for hours, let him eat his fill. But Draco is close—embarrassingly so—by the time Ron works his tongue a little ways inside. Impatient, Draco grips Ron’s hair hard and summons a bottle of lube. It takes a minute to get Ron to stop, to make him understand that he needs—God, he needs this.
But Ron must get the message, because he’s turning Draco over and hoisting him onto his knees. The first drop of lube is cold, but the second is warm and syrupy, hotter still when Ron pushes a finger inside.
“Is it okay? I don’t know—I’ve done this but—not with a man.”
“Same—general principle.” Draco groans into his pillow. Ron’s thick finger stings a little as it works in and out; so much after nothing for so long, but the sting fades to warmth. “More, I need—”
“Yeah. I’ve got more for you. I can—I can give you more.” A second finger joins the first, and Draco’s mind goes white. “Fuck, you’re so—god, that’s hot.”
Draco can hear Ron wanking himself beneath the covers, can feel his own body spreading open. Draco is begging now, an embarrassing litany of please and Ron and now.
“Shh. I’ve got what you need.” It’s been so long that Draco yelps and nearly shies away when Ron presses the fat head of his dick to Draco’s rim. But he’s a big boy, and he wants this, has wanted it for an ungodly long time. He still yelps when Ron slips inside, when he pushes in just this side of too fast, bottoming out so quickly that Draco can’t adjust. All he can do is feel, let the burn take him over as Ron moves inside of him, breathless and careful, copper lashes curled against his cheek.
“Hard,” Draco whispers. “Please. I won’t break. I—”
Ron pulls back and plunges inside, almost more quickly than he can take. But the fullness, the pressure, the ache spreading within—it’s all worth it. Ron takes him at his word, and he thrusts, at first haphazard—then falls into a brutal rhythm that leaves Draco utterly at his mercy.
“Draco, I’m—I’m not going to last.” Ron’s hips speed and stutter. “Can I—can I come inside? I—oh. Fuck. Oh, God—”
“Yes. Come on.” Draco takes himself in hand as Ron slams into him. The build is almost painfully fast, just as it had been outside—but when he comes, his climax stays, cock jumping hard as Ron fucks him. After Draco’s hips stop twitching, after he’s covered in his release, Ron’s body shudders above him. Ron bites down on Draco’s earlobe and sucks hard, crying out once before he goes still.
Ron kisses him, tentative and tender, cradling the back of Draco’s head. “God,” he says, “you feel so good. I—I want to tie you up and never let you go.”
“That’s terribly romantic.” Draco tucks a lock of Ron’s hair behind his ear, tracing the outline of his face in the dark. “And marginally threatening.”
“Alright, I take it back. I’ll occasionally let you leave.” He kisses the pointy bit of Draco’s chin, the part he’s always hated. “And I’ll take you to dinner like a normal person when we’re back in the real world. If you like.”
“Like a date. We’ll have to formally file with the Ministry—”
“Right.”
“Tell everyone in our department.”
“We can do that if you like. We can announce it in the Prophet, if you’d rather.” Draco can feel his body drawing tight with tension, all the old worries sinking in. “Or it can be just ours. For a while, anyway.”
Draco settles against Ron’s shoulder. That’s better. There’s the faintest hint of light on the eastern horizon. The moon still hangs in the sky, its pale lunar light meeting the rise of Christmas dawn. Ron casts a cleaning charm, warm against Draco’s skin. The rise and fall of their breath evens, and they fall back to sleep in their sea of scarlet red and winter furs.