Tapping

“I brought mu shu pork,” Ron announced proudly. Draco was folding towels in the cramped laundry room, and Ron set the food down in the kitchen to come say hello.

“That is very inappropriate,” Draco insisted, as Ron’s hands got a little familiar.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“I see.” Draco turned his head to accept a kiss. “I have a date tomorrow.”

“Oh? With whom?”

“This younger guy. Kind of cute, but a little immature.”

“Hermione called, didn’t she,” Ron said.

“I think Ginny scared her into thinking I was ready to be put back in a padded room,” Draco said, picking up the stack of towels. “Put these away.”

“Yes, dear,” Ron said, laughing.

They ate in the kitchen in comfortable quiet. Ron attempted to steal one of Draco’s pancakes and received a well-aimed slap on the hand.

“What good is having a blind boyfriend if you can’t even sneak food away from him?” he asked.

“You could move the furniture around and have a grand time watching me trip over things,” Draco said dryly.

“I’ll take that into advisement,” Ron said, picking up his chopsticks.

“You’re good to have around,” Draco said, leaning back in his chair. “You’re predictable. I like that.”

“Happy to be of service,” Ron answered.

“No, really. And everything I need to know is in your voice. I don’t have to see your face to have a conversation with you.”

“My mother always told me to be plainspoken.” Ron was a little uncomfortable with Draco’s choice of topics. He chewed his lip.

“I really don’t know where I’d be without you,” Draco said, touching the back of Ron’s hand. His pale eyes seemed to slide up Ron’s face and meet his gaze. Ron suppressed the shudder.

“I’ll clear the table,” he offered. Draco sat back and let his lover take his plate. He pushed back from the table and walked into the living room, leaving Ron with the dishes and his thoughts.

Ron found him lying on the bed, hands behind his head, eyes closed. He carefully knelt over Draco’s body, trying not to put too much weight on his lover’s chest. Draco hummed and ran his hands up into Ron’s hair.

“You know, I have an excuse for bad hair,” he said, smoothing the unruly red locks. “I can’t see a mirror. You, on the other hand…”

“Oh, shove it,” Ron murmured, nuzzling Draco’s wrist. He got a light slap on the head.

“I will not tolerate that tone,” Draco said sternly. But he was smiling, and Ron pulled him into a kiss. He stretched out beside Draco, letting their legs entwine, and cradled the smaller body to his.

“You really thought about me all day?” Draco asked mischievously, pushing Ron onto his back. He unbuttoned Ron’s shirt and pressed a kiss to the bared skin.

“It was rough, let me tell you,” Ron said, arching to let Draco unbuckle his belt. “I was in a meeting about diversity management and I had this huge boner. Knocked it on the conference table and one of the meeting leaders went to answer the door.”

“Ridiculous,” Draco murmured, tugging at Ron’s fly with his teeth.

“And then I was at my desk and this bird comes over to ask about the new memo headers, and all I could think about was getting home and undressing you.”

“I’m sorry to distract you,” Draco said, rubbing his nose against the inside of Ron’s thigh.

“You’re very good at it.”

“Thanks.” Draco tugged Ron out of his trousers and unabashedly nuzzled his growing erection. “Well, hello.”

“Hi,” Ron said, arching.

“You were telling me about your day,” Draco prompted, teasing Ron’s boxers down.

“Oh, right.” Ron was breathing hard now, and having trouble stringing words together. Draco smiled and trailed his tongue slowly up the underside of his lover’s shaft.

“Uh, well, I…” Ron trailed off as Draco really got down to work.

“Hmm?” Draco inquired, sending a shudder through Ron’s body.

“It really wasn’t very interesting,” Ron said in a rush.

Draco chuckled. He took a deep breath through his nose and relaxed his throat. Ron was too big for him to take all the way, so he fisted his hand around him. He knew his lover liked a little bit of tooth, just slightly scraping the underside, and a lot of glide. Draco drew back almost until he lost hold of Ron, then dived back down. He smiled around his task as Ron gasped and arched, hands twisting almost too hard in Draco’s hair. Draco loved the sounds Ron made, quiet and without unnecessary drama. It did not take very long for Ron to make a shuddering groan and press up into Draco’s mouth, trembling his release. Draco raised his head to Ron’s stomach and rested his cheek there, making no show of swallowing. It was as natural as breathing, after all this time.

“Come here,” Ron said, tugging him upward. Draco let himself be pulled into Ron’s lap, his clothed back pressed to Ron’s smooth, bare chest. He cocked his head for Ron to nibble at his neck. One big, rough hand trailed down his stomach and cradled him gently through his jeans.

“I love the way these look on you,” Ron murmured, stroking with one thumb.

“I like how they feel.”

“They make your ass look amazing.” Ron deftly unbuttoned Draco’s fly and tugged the zipper down. Draco leaned back against him. “Not that it really needed much help.”

“Nice to know I’m appreciated,” Draco murmured. Ron slipped his hand under the waistline of Draco’s snug shorts and cupped a warm, dry palm around the Malfoy family jewels. Draco permitted himself a sigh. Ron lifted him easily to slide his pants down and out of the way, then his hand returned, this time slick with one of the various somethings in the nightstand.

“Lay your head back,” Ron said softly, pressing gently on Draco’s chest with his free hand. “Let me look at you.”

Ron’s fingers were slightly rough, and his hand was easily half again the size of Draco’s. He easily engulfed Draco’s erection in his grasp, stroking lazily. Draco closed his eyes and let himself fall into an easy sprawl against Ron’s lap. He sometimes joked that Ron was so good at this because he’d spent so much time jacking off as a young man, but as Ron’s fingers moved over his flesh such jokes didn’t even cross his mind. Draco moaned very softly and Ron kissed his neck just below the ear, in that spot that made him crazy.

Ron smiled against Draco’s throat, adjusting his motions slightly to accommodate the small circles Draco’s hips were making against him. It was easier to forget everything bad that had ever happened to them when they were in bed. He closed his eyes and just listened, imagining that this must be what Draco experienced every time. Draco was panting quicker now, and Ron opened his eyes to admire the fine curve of his neck and chest, glistening slightly with fresh sweat. He bit gently at the place where neck and shoulder met, then soothed the spot with his lips.

Ron slid his other hand down over Draco’s chest and stomach, through the thin line of hair that ran from his navel to his groin, under to stroke his sac. Draco swallowed hard and resumed his soft panting, grabbing Ron’s leg as a desperate handhold. Ron smiled and increased his pace.

“Fuck,” Draco gasped. He always seemed to come very suddenly, almost surprising them both, and Ron cupped his hand over his lover’s cock to prevent him from spilling all over the sheets. Draco lay back against him for a moment, stunned.

“Couldn’t have done better myself,” he said finally, wiping his forehead.

“That’s why you keep me around.”

“Oh, is that it?” Draco asked. “I wondered.”

“Don’t make me wipe this all over you,” Ron threatened.

“Please god, not my own bodily fluids,” Draco murmured. Unbidden, an image came to mind: white skin slick and shiny with bright blood, the knife in his hands, unable to stop himself as his punishment was meted out. It was the last thing he had seen. He shoved it roughly from his imagination and kissed Ron firmly.

It was Ron’s fault, really, they both knew. The Death Eaters had had no trouble extracting the Order’s secrets from his mind. With those secrets was revealed the exact nature of Draco’s relationship to the Order, and to Ron. Voldemort had been furious to be betrayed once more. The part that plagued Ron the most was that when they released him, he had no recollection of revealing everything to them. Draco’s father had buried an Imperius suggestion in his mind, ready to be activated at the right moment. Then he waited for Draco to return to the Death Eaters’ base.

Ron had never gotten a straight answer from either Draco or Hermione as to what had happened that night, but he knew that at the end of it all Hermione was pregnant and Draco had all but carved out his own eyes.

And three weeks later, after Draco and the other Death Eaters were imprisoned and Hermione returned to the Order, the hidden command in Ron’s mind came to life.

Sometimes in his dreams Ron could see it, the moment when his own will shut down. The rest he pieced together from what he had been told. He remembered Harry’s joyful embrace, but not drawing the knife or slipping it between his friend’s ribs seven times. The next thing he could recall was feeling Harry slide out of his arms to the ground, and the blood. So much blood, from such tiny wounds. He did not realize what he had done, but called in shock and terror to the others.

As the sweat cooled between them, Draco slid out of Ron’s lap.

“I’m going to have to wash these jeans now,” he muttered.

“You could let me do it,” Ron said.

“That’s my job,” Draco chided.

“I don’t envy you,” Ron chuckled. “Even a meeting is less painful than folding.”

“I kind of like folding,” Draco said, slipping out of his jeans and shorts and dumping them in the hamper. He wandered into the bathroom to grab a damp washcloth.

“Be careful,” Ron called. “You’ll lose those baby-soft hands.”

Draco leaned back in and made a rude gesture.

“Oh, very nice,” Ron said. Draco came back in and tossed the washcloth at Ron.

“Wipe your hands.”

He climbed into bed and Ron threw the cloth at the laundry hamper.

“I never thought I’d be putting clothes back on after sex to go to sleep,” Ron said, pulling Draco close. The chill in the basement room had begun to creep into his bones. With his lover pressed tightly against him, he was only mildly cold.

“We could move back into the wizarding community, I suppose. Magically-enhanced climate control.”

They had chosen the quiet Muggle neighborhood, with a family of four next door and two sisters who showed purebred Pomeranians in the upper half of the duplex, because for several months after Draco’s release he and Ron were hounded by the wizard press.

“I guess the scribblers will have given up by now,” Ron mused. “But I’ve started to like it here.”

“Me too,” Draco said softly.

“When we were in school, would you have believed you’d be living next door to the Parkers and the Roseneaths?” Ron asked.

Draco snorted.

“I thought so.”

“Would you?” Draco asked.

“Probably not,” Ron said. They cuddled close for as long as they could stand it.

“I’m freezing,” Draco murmured. “Can we get dressed?”