Fic: Art of denial (Part 9)

[my_thestral]

Author's note: Uh, at this point, I don't have much more written than this and it might be a while before I update. But I got to a certain point with Choices and they might be fit to post soon... yeah, just how I roll... :P
Pairing: Ron/Draco
Word count: 2096 (this part)
Rating: NC-17-ish - nothing too explicit, but just to be on the safe side
Disclaimer: Characters will be returned on the shelf as soon as I crumple the box a little. I wasn't going to nick and sell them anyway. I'm not in for the profit.

He lay there in his embrace hours later, relaxed, boneless and almost dozing away, when an unexpected thought ambushed him and woke him up completely. Ron was leaving for a two-week honeymoon, he knew that as well as he knew that this unexpected gift of time they got to spend together spelled everything Ron couldn’t say: that he was sorry and that he was going to miss him. But did it also say “goodbye”? Was this perhaps Ron’s way of saying he won’t be coming anymore? With a wife and a baby on the way, this was a very real possibility. Weasley was just crazy this way. He found himself with his heart beating like a drum in his throat and suddenly he could think of nothing else. He had to find out and found out now, even at the risk of sounding desperate.

“So, Weasley…” he made a feeble attempt at drawling, but he was certain Ron could feel his fluttering heart against his skin and call his bluff with his eyes closed. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? I know you’re leaving tomorrow, so what is this… goodbye until next time… or just goodbye, plain and simple?”

Ron’s fingers, treading through his hair, stopped abruptly and a moment later he was pulled up, all brutal strength and no attempt at subtlety. Yeah, that was Weasley alright; the man was practically a bear, manners and all. And deliciously warm and protective. He found himself staring into Ron’s eyes and the redhead spoke quietly:

“Don’t even think it… I could never leave you. A Gryffindor here, hello?! We’re nothing if not loyal. I know what we have is in no way formal, I know you like to think you’re just toying around until something real happens and someone better comes along... I know you, Draco Malfoy. And I know sooner or later you’re going to cave in under your parents’ wishes and find someone to share your life in the spotlight with... and I know that can never be me. You’ll never be ready to parade me around and I’m willing to take this in stride.”

There was a deep sadness at the bottom of those blue eyes and Draco’s heart constricted painfully in his chest. God, he didn’t mean to hurt him and this fucking wobbly self-esteem of his…

But Ron already continued, his voice adamant and warm, though laced with a hint of sadness: “But that doesn’t make it any less real to me. I know it’s only Thursday meetings and that you could do a lot better than me, even when only lovers are considered, but to me – this counts. It counts for a whole lot, sometimes it’s the only thing that makes me go through the week. The few times I was forced to do without you…  it was like a string of fucking endless grey days soaked in yearning that seemed to stretch on forever… until our next meeting… it’s like on Thursdays all the colours in the world explode with brilliance for me – they’re my favourite days of the week. I’d never give them up. Unless… you brought this up because you want to?”

He looked at him straight, the sadness in those exquisite blue eyes more pronounced and Draco found himself again with a knot in the throat:

“Don’t be absurd,” he said quickly, his voice almost crumbling. “You give it to me like no one else does…”

And he hoped Ron understood that he didn’t only refer to the mind-blowing sex, because Ron was right; he couldn’t tell him, he couldn’t bring himself around to confessing how much more this has become. “It’s just – my parents are pressuring me something crazy,” he finally blurted. “They can’t seem to shut up about “that blasted Potter and the Weasleys marrying up and down” and I’m afraid I’m going to have to… eventually… you know… agree to a certain arrangement… but I by all means plan to keep our arrangement intact, I couldn’t…” he knew he was blabbing now, but he couldn’t help himself.

He desperately needed to make sure that wherever their lives took them, they would somehow find a way to make this work. He needed it. He needed it like water and air and he needed to make sure it was still going to be there - no matter what. And if the only way to get there was to confess that he planned to do everything in his power to keep it going, then this goddamn confession it was. That’s how fucked he was. Thursdays were… important. Thursdays were everything. And apparently Ron thought so as well, because he let the fingers of his hand slip under his chin and he tilted his head gently to look him straight in the eyes.

“I know you have a life away from me, Draco Malfoy. A life that makes these Thursdays seem like a very very bad habit. I’ve made myself vulnerable with wife and a baby on the way. You were born vulnerable. You’re a Malfoy and there’s nothing you can do about it; no way in which you could introduce the universe of Thursdays to the life you live every day without a devastating clash. I know you won’t risk it. I’m not asking you to. You... do as you must. As hard as this is for me... and I know you don’t need it... you have my permission to be a proper Malfoy, with everything that entails... a wife, an heir. I can’t stop you. And I won’t. But I won’t leave you either. For me... when you show up every Thursday, it means everything. It says more about this than you ever will. And just to see that I appreciate it... don’t forget our next Thursday.”

“Weasley, I dare say you’re awfully short of memory,” said Draco in his best annoyed voice, because he needed a cover to hide just how raw he was. “You can’t be here next Thursday or the next, you Gryffindor dork, and it’s a sad thing that I have to remind you about it. You’ll be exploring whatever the hell the Mud... your wife thinks is interesting in Egypt, for all it’s worth, I think she’s ready to take on the entire Alexandrian library and you’d be left alone to scorch in boredom and the unbearable heat.”

“Twat,” smiled Ron and kissed him. “You’re probably right, though... Well, there are always cute Egyptian boys to ogle.... ouch!... what was that for?!”

Draco pinched him mercilessly: “You, Ronald Billius Weasley – God Almighty, I didn’t even know I knew your full name and what an awful name it is! – you, Sir, are not ogling anyone or anything that comes with an arse, is that understood!? Or will you force me to perform some overly-complex and possibly illegal spell-work that could make your ability for arse-ogling a thing of the past!?”

Ron threw his head back and laughed heartily and from such close proximity it left Draco breathless and dizzy... Merlin, how he loved to see him laugh! A completely unabashed explosion of pure joy and happiness, released out into the Universe with abandon... and that sparkle in his eyes... He couldn’t help himself, he kissed him greedily, as if he could eat this precious emotion pregnant with magic straight from his mouth and he couldn’t be smugger when it ended in a soft moan and “Draco... god, man... just be here, alright?” And he had no mouth to speak with and no brain left to think of what Ron could have meant for some time to come...

But he was there on Thursday, he had nowhere better to be anyway. He probably would have been here even if Ron didn’t ask it of him. He just... Thursdays were for them and he missed the very scent of him. He knew he would be spending the night here if Ron fire-called or not. Regardless. Just because. Because he couldn’t do without. Even when it was all an illusion. That’s just how fucked up he was.

And when the fire-place roared to life and out stepped one Ron Weasley, freckled, tired, radiant and sporting a tan, Draco’s year-long drill in manners and eloquence refused to come to his assistance.

“What are you doing here?” he blurted and couldn’t take his eyes of the tall muscled frame and sun bleached hair that shone like red gold.

“Oh, let’s see,” said Ron matter-of-factly and perhaps just a bit smugly. “I lied to my pregnant wife, left her for the night with my brother and his wife to rest her swollen feet, took two international port-keys and a very long and disorienting floo just to – as you so smartly put it “give it to you like no one else does” – and this is what I get as a thank you and a welcome?”

And then he was knocked backwards by a very un-Malfoyian head-on assault that landed a ridiculously happy Draco Malfoy grinning madly on top of him, kissing him with abandon.

“You... Weasley... are killing me...” he managed and Ron took it, the way it was meant, from the heart. “Smug bastard... - give it to me like no one else does - he said,” Draco mumbled as he planted his kisses all over the pretty face that haunted him day and night.

“Your words, not mine...” chuckled Ron straight into his mouth and the vibration of his sweet mouth against Draco’s was the most beautiful thing on the planet. “Perhaps you should think more carefully before you place a weapon so powerful in my mouth again.”

“Oh... I will... be sure of that... I’ll think very carefully what to plant in that beautiful mouth of yours next, Weasley,” Draco all but moaned, because Ron’s mouth just re-discovered his sensitive neck and began licking long wet stripes all the way from the pulse to that soft spot just beneath his ears and turned him all liquid on spot. “Christ, Ron... I missed you,” his stupid mouth confessed before he could stop it, but it was just as well, because the redhead came and it was all for him.

He rested inside his magnificent arms afterwards, spent and boneless, and he would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of his days like this. As it was, he was desperately trying to soak in some of his warmth and strength just to make it through the horrible long days before he could have this again and when Ron moved, too soon and inevitably, with a soft “Draco... I should go”, he blurted out without a thought:

“My mother is throwing me a grand ball on Saturday... to pick a bride.”

And Ron just stopped dead mid-movement and looked at him with sad, unfathomable eyes.

“I don’t want to,” Draco kept on blabbing. “I don’t, honestly... but I must. The house of Malfoy needs an heir and I can’t neglect my duty any longer. You must understand...”

“I do,” said Ron quietly and began putting his clothes on. “I told you, I know you have to; I knew this was coming... but it doesn’t hurt any less.”

He kissed him one last time, softly, with love and devotion only a broken heart was capable of and looked deep into his eyes: “Whoever you pick... treat her gently. It’s not her fault. Perhaps she’ll also have to give something precious up to be with you.”

And he left; stepped into a fire-place and blew him a kiss, but the smile never reached his lovely eyes.

Draco didn’t know the heart could get shattered time and time again.

~

In two weeks time there was a splendid front-page photo in the Daily Prophet of “Draco Malfoy, the heir of the Malfoy estate, attending the charity ball for children in need in the company of his beautiful fiancée Lady Astoria Greengras”

The pretty young lady on the picture smiled blissfully at the tall slender blond, who looked in every way content, and Ron crumpled that blasted rag of a newspaper and went flying. And if he came back with slightly red eyes he could tell everyone it was from the wind. It didn’t matter. He was starting a new week at work with his new partner and at least he had that.

It wasn’t until 4 months later when he received a beautifully decorated invitation in a creamy thick envelope, inviting one “Ronald Billius Weasley and spouse to the wedding of Draco Lucius Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass” that he lost it completely.

~ End of Part 9 ~

Next: Art of denial (10): There to witness defeat

See also:
Art of Denial (1): It's been 20 years...
Art of denial (2): First time
Art of denial (3): Some First time... some Second time...
Art of denial (4): Still second time... and time again...
Art of denial (5): Milestones
Art of denial (6): Of hearts and bonds
Art of denial (7): Cracked open and oozing true feelings
Art of denial (8): Unbreakable