Veelainc finish-this-fic Challenge
Jan. 19th, 2003 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The background: I wrote this fic called Dirty, which was a break up fic that didn't putting H and D back together. Shortly thereafter I began a sequel, which is called Rose Red. It's from Harry's POV, and the goal had sort of been to see if I could put them back together.
I got stalled.
So now it has no ending. My challenge of the moment is this: can you finish this fic? I have no idea how it should end. I thought they should get back together, but it's such a disfunctional relationship. So now I don't know.
Can you help me?
Rose Red
The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when snow-white said, we will not leave each other, rose-red answered, never so long as we live.
-Brothers Grimm, Snow-White and Rose-Red
The last thing he did, before that last argument, before he discovered the last betrayal, was kiss Draco's inner wrist. It felt almost vampiric; a kiss that tried to suck the blood out of him, the vitriol and the ignorance and the thoughtlessness. The careless cruelty. He would suck it out like a poison and spit it onto the rug, watch it burn a hole in the floor. And then he would look up into Draco's face and there would be peace there, finally. He would open his eyes and smile and kiss him and tell him beautiful things. I love you, I'm sorry, tell me all about yourself.
Harry wished he could kiss Draco and make him wake up. He wanted to dislodge whatever strange fruit was in his throat, whatever it was that made him a walking corpse, a beast buried under layers of cotton and wool and deceptive flesh.
Sometimes he wished Draco were sick. For a long time that was the story he told himself; Draco was depressed, he was unwell. That explained his bouts of anger, when he tried to pound Harry into a wall and then cried when he thought Harry wouldn't notice. He was just depressed. That explained why he woke up in the middle of the night and turned all the lights on, proclaimed it day, turned on music, and pretended that Harry wasn't there.
Sometimes he wished that Draco were dead, because it would be easier to mourn him than to hate him.
It hadn't always been like this. Even toward the end it wasn't always so horrible. When Sirius Black died Draco held Harry for hours, rocked him until he fell asleep and cooked him breakfast in the morning. They went out for a long walk together only two weeks before Harry had finally had enough, and they laughed so hard Harry had pulled a muscle.
When Draco was good, he was marvelous. He was breath-taking, he was radiant; he was compelling and challenging and Harry wanted him, even after years of having him however he liked, whenever he liked. One smile from Draco and Harry melted, the smell of him still turned Harry's knees to jelly, his breath on Harry's neck made him forget where he was. Nothing was as alluring to Harry as the knowledge that, no matter how bitterly they argued, no matter who he had been kissing or fucking hours before, Draco was always receptive to Harry's touch. He always purred when Harry nuzzled into his neck or woke him up with a hand between his legs.
But lately there was always someone else in the background, someone else lurching forward at a party, some nameless someone with Draco's lip prints on his throat. It was no secret that Draco couldn't seem to even spell the word monogamy. Harry blamed himself for this, too. He wasn't clear enough from the start, he figured. He never said, in so many words, that there would be no one else, that there should be no others. There hadn't been for a while, there had been no need to point it out, but then Harry started finding the evidence and was shattered by it. Draco didn't seem to understand.
"It was nothing," he said, and sat down on the couch. "I was just bored." Harry didn't know how to respond to this. Is he just bored with me too?
His friends had been warning Harry against Draco for years; Ron had given up the fight. "If this is what you want, Harry," he'd say, "I'm not going to stand in your way. But there's a spare bedroom in my house for you at any time. You've got the key. There's room for storage in the basement." It was reassuring and terrifying. He'd packed his things up more times than he could count and only once did he make it through the front door.
But once had been enough.
He was wracked with guilt for weeks afterward. His dreams were filled with blood and tears and screaming, fingers pointing at him. He had failed some kind of test, his heart was not true enough, his love not strong enough. True love does not leave, they said. It doesn't fade into a sea of anger and resentment and lingering hurt.
The sad fact was that he was waiting for Draco to look up one day, the wedge of the magic apple expelled from his throat, and say, "Oh Harry. How you've suffered for love of me. I'm not a beast anymore. You've transformed me. And now we'll live happily ever after." Heroes can do these things, and everyone knew that Harry Potter was hero. Harry tried to flip to the back of this book, but Draco had glued the pages together.
Before he had even walked halfway down the street he was sorely tempted to run back. He even knew how it would go, and it was such a sweet return. He would walk back in the door, he would dump his things beside the couch and huff, he would swear and kick things and get angry and Draco would look at him, seeming slightly sorry but never sorry enough, and lean forward to kiss him. And that would get Harry every time, the promise of it. As if this kiss contained everything he wanted. And it always seemed to. And Draco would not resist him, no matter what he wanted. He would let Harry undress him, he would let Harry be loving or brutal or both; he had no boundaries, and Harry thought this made him special.
Never confuse sex and intimacy, young man. That's what they should have taught him at school. Just because he lets you fuck him doesn't mean he lets you have him. Harry would wake up with Draco in his arms in the middle of the night and realize that Draco's hair still smelled like smoke and someone else's cologne. Harry was just another vacation spot, and a dull one at that.
They saw each other on occasion after that, and each time Draco seemed to be laughing at him. Harry was still a knight looking up at a tower where Draco was locked up tight; but there was no evil stepmother, no secret key, no forced labour. There was a back door, and everyone but Harry knew about it.
Six months later, when Harry was stumbling home in a pounding rain at 2am after a rowdy night at the pub, he came across the oddest sight. At first he thought it was just a trick of the light; too much alcohol, a play of shadows, the effect of the rain. It was on the patio of a old favourite haunt of his; a Muggle open-air café where he used to bring a book, meet some friends, drink coffee. He loved that place, but one day they changed ownership, changed coffee beans, and Harry's wizarding friends had finally drifted into another hangout and taken Harry with them.
But there was someone sitting outside on the patio, sitting on a metal chair at a metal table without an umbrella, his clothes completely drenched and hanging in weird folds against him. He must have been out there for hours, by the look of him. Draco.
He was wearing a jacket and a tie, though it had come loose by then. He had puddles forming in the folds of his trousers and his shoes were visibly spilling over with water. At first Harry thought he was dead.
"Draco?" Harry touched his shoulder, and he looked over lazily, as if it were a perfectly sunny afternoon.
"Hello, Harry," Draco said. His hair was plastered down against his head, so wet it almost looked transparent. He picked something up off the table. "These are for you."
Roses. It looked like a couple dozen of them. The paper they had been wrapped in had disintegrated, the petals had been pounded loose by the rain and scattered into the puddles as Draco offered them up. Red roses. Mangled red roses. Harry wasn't sure how to take that. He looked over at the table and saw a box of candy that had sagged and torn under the weight of the rain, a puddle of brown goo oozing out of one side.
"Sorry about those," Draco said, pointing at the box. "They didn't survive so well."
"No, I guess they didn't." Harry sat down opposite him and took the flowers. Water shook off their leaves and splattered over his rapidly sopping trousers. "What are you doing here?"
"I was waiting for you," Draco said, as if that were perfectly reasonable and perfectly obvious.
"Now? Here? Why?"
"I wasn't sure where you were living," Draco confessed. "But I knew you liked this place once, so I thought, eventually, you might come by."
"How long have you been here?"
"Two days." For a moment Harry didn't believe him. How could he sit here for two days? But then Harry remembered who this was, and what kinds of things he had been known to do. Hours spent staring at Harry's skin, touching his hip bone, the tracing his fingers along Harry's abdomen. Hours staring into his face and telling him stories until the sun came up. He looked at the box of chocolates, and then at the flowers in his hands.
"Why?"
Draco sighed. "I miss you, Harry."
He didn't know what to say to that.
Draco ran his fingers through his sopping wet hair and shivered. "I got you these," he said, shaking the flowers in his hands, "because I wanted you to know that I...well, that I'm serious." He held them out to Harry. It seemed natural to take them, and Harry did. They were cold and slimy and already half rotten. "I'm sorry." Draco rubbed his temples as he said it, it was a nervous twitch Harry had seen hundreds of times. Nervous, and sincere. "I'm so sorry."
It was almost too much; Harry wasn't sure what to do. It would be so easy to just take him home, it would be so easy to peel those clothes off him and tuck him into bed. And Draco would let him do it; he would let Harry hold him, he would purr into his throat again. It would be selective memory, pretending the bad memories were fantasies, nightmares, remembering only the best parts. He would remember that feeling of certainty, with Draco's body moving over him, the certainty that this was what love felt like. He would press himself against Draco's body and kiss him like he would never let him go again. They could pretend this made sense and it would be so nice.
I'm sorry. At one time it was all he wanted to hear, the words that would solve anything. Now it was six months later and Harry wasn't sure what to think. I'm sorry doesn't mean all that much, in the end. A tiny bandage on a gaping wound, one flickering flame on in the middle of a cold night, a porch light on a dark street waiting for someone to come home, someone who would never ever come home again.
"I've been an asshole, I know I have been." Harry could hardly disagree. "You deserve better." Harry looked up at him. Draco's lips were almost blue. "I love you."
Harry looked down at his hands, his trembling palms covered by dead stems. He was drunk and he thought that was probably saving him from speaking too quickly. What was he supposed to say?
"Please, Harry." Draco reached out and touched Harry's arm and it was more than Harry could bear. He closed his eyes and thanked God for the rain. "I'm sorry," Draco whispered, and Harry found himself enveloped in very cold, very wet arms. "Don't cry. I'm sorry."
Have an idea? Write it up and post it at veelainc.
*pleads* I have no idea how to end this sucker.
I got stalled.
So now it has no ending. My challenge of the moment is this: can you finish this fic? I have no idea how it should end. I thought they should get back together, but it's such a disfunctional relationship. So now I don't know.
Can you help me?
The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when snow-white said, we will not leave each other, rose-red answered, never so long as we live.
-Brothers Grimm, Snow-White and Rose-Red
The last thing he did, before that last argument, before he discovered the last betrayal, was kiss Draco's inner wrist. It felt almost vampiric; a kiss that tried to suck the blood out of him, the vitriol and the ignorance and the thoughtlessness. The careless cruelty. He would suck it out like a poison and spit it onto the rug, watch it burn a hole in the floor. And then he would look up into Draco's face and there would be peace there, finally. He would open his eyes and smile and kiss him and tell him beautiful things. I love you, I'm sorry, tell me all about yourself.
Harry wished he could kiss Draco and make him wake up. He wanted to dislodge whatever strange fruit was in his throat, whatever it was that made him a walking corpse, a beast buried under layers of cotton and wool and deceptive flesh.
Sometimes he wished Draco were sick. For a long time that was the story he told himself; Draco was depressed, he was unwell. That explained his bouts of anger, when he tried to pound Harry into a wall and then cried when he thought Harry wouldn't notice. He was just depressed. That explained why he woke up in the middle of the night and turned all the lights on, proclaimed it day, turned on music, and pretended that Harry wasn't there.
Sometimes he wished that Draco were dead, because it would be easier to mourn him than to hate him.
It hadn't always been like this. Even toward the end it wasn't always so horrible. When Sirius Black died Draco held Harry for hours, rocked him until he fell asleep and cooked him breakfast in the morning. They went out for a long walk together only two weeks before Harry had finally had enough, and they laughed so hard Harry had pulled a muscle.
When Draco was good, he was marvelous. He was breath-taking, he was radiant; he was compelling and challenging and Harry wanted him, even after years of having him however he liked, whenever he liked. One smile from Draco and Harry melted, the smell of him still turned Harry's knees to jelly, his breath on Harry's neck made him forget where he was. Nothing was as alluring to Harry as the knowledge that, no matter how bitterly they argued, no matter who he had been kissing or fucking hours before, Draco was always receptive to Harry's touch. He always purred when Harry nuzzled into his neck or woke him up with a hand between his legs.
But lately there was always someone else in the background, someone else lurching forward at a party, some nameless someone with Draco's lip prints on his throat. It was no secret that Draco couldn't seem to even spell the word monogamy. Harry blamed himself for this, too. He wasn't clear enough from the start, he figured. He never said, in so many words, that there would be no one else, that there should be no others. There hadn't been for a while, there had been no need to point it out, but then Harry started finding the evidence and was shattered by it. Draco didn't seem to understand.
"It was nothing," he said, and sat down on the couch. "I was just bored." Harry didn't know how to respond to this. Is he just bored with me too?
His friends had been warning Harry against Draco for years; Ron had given up the fight. "If this is what you want, Harry," he'd say, "I'm not going to stand in your way. But there's a spare bedroom in my house for you at any time. You've got the key. There's room for storage in the basement." It was reassuring and terrifying. He'd packed his things up more times than he could count and only once did he make it through the front door.
But once had been enough.
He was wracked with guilt for weeks afterward. His dreams were filled with blood and tears and screaming, fingers pointing at him. He had failed some kind of test, his heart was not true enough, his love not strong enough. True love does not leave, they said. It doesn't fade into a sea of anger and resentment and lingering hurt.
The sad fact was that he was waiting for Draco to look up one day, the wedge of the magic apple expelled from his throat, and say, "Oh Harry. How you've suffered for love of me. I'm not a beast anymore. You've transformed me. And now we'll live happily ever after." Heroes can do these things, and everyone knew that Harry Potter was hero. Harry tried to flip to the back of this book, but Draco had glued the pages together.
Before he had even walked halfway down the street he was sorely tempted to run back. He even knew how it would go, and it was such a sweet return. He would walk back in the door, he would dump his things beside the couch and huff, he would swear and kick things and get angry and Draco would look at him, seeming slightly sorry but never sorry enough, and lean forward to kiss him. And that would get Harry every time, the promise of it. As if this kiss contained everything he wanted. And it always seemed to. And Draco would not resist him, no matter what he wanted. He would let Harry undress him, he would let Harry be loving or brutal or both; he had no boundaries, and Harry thought this made him special.
Never confuse sex and intimacy, young man. That's what they should have taught him at school. Just because he lets you fuck him doesn't mean he lets you have him. Harry would wake up with Draco in his arms in the middle of the night and realize that Draco's hair still smelled like smoke and someone else's cologne. Harry was just another vacation spot, and a dull one at that.
They saw each other on occasion after that, and each time Draco seemed to be laughing at him. Harry was still a knight looking up at a tower where Draco was locked up tight; but there was no evil stepmother, no secret key, no forced labour. There was a back door, and everyone but Harry knew about it.
Six months later, when Harry was stumbling home in a pounding rain at 2am after a rowdy night at the pub, he came across the oddest sight. At first he thought it was just a trick of the light; too much alcohol, a play of shadows, the effect of the rain. It was on the patio of a old favourite haunt of his; a Muggle open-air café where he used to bring a book, meet some friends, drink coffee. He loved that place, but one day they changed ownership, changed coffee beans, and Harry's wizarding friends had finally drifted into another hangout and taken Harry with them.
But there was someone sitting outside on the patio, sitting on a metal chair at a metal table without an umbrella, his clothes completely drenched and hanging in weird folds against him. He must have been out there for hours, by the look of him. Draco.
He was wearing a jacket and a tie, though it had come loose by then. He had puddles forming in the folds of his trousers and his shoes were visibly spilling over with water. At first Harry thought he was dead.
"Draco?" Harry touched his shoulder, and he looked over lazily, as if it were a perfectly sunny afternoon.
"Hello, Harry," Draco said. His hair was plastered down against his head, so wet it almost looked transparent. He picked something up off the table. "These are for you."
Roses. It looked like a couple dozen of them. The paper they had been wrapped in had disintegrated, the petals had been pounded loose by the rain and scattered into the puddles as Draco offered them up. Red roses. Mangled red roses. Harry wasn't sure how to take that. He looked over at the table and saw a box of candy that had sagged and torn under the weight of the rain, a puddle of brown goo oozing out of one side.
"Sorry about those," Draco said, pointing at the box. "They didn't survive so well."
"No, I guess they didn't." Harry sat down opposite him and took the flowers. Water shook off their leaves and splattered over his rapidly sopping trousers. "What are you doing here?"
"I was waiting for you," Draco said, as if that were perfectly reasonable and perfectly obvious.
"Now? Here? Why?"
"I wasn't sure where you were living," Draco confessed. "But I knew you liked this place once, so I thought, eventually, you might come by."
"How long have you been here?"
"Two days." For a moment Harry didn't believe him. How could he sit here for two days? But then Harry remembered who this was, and what kinds of things he had been known to do. Hours spent staring at Harry's skin, touching his hip bone, the tracing his fingers along Harry's abdomen. Hours staring into his face and telling him stories until the sun came up. He looked at the box of chocolates, and then at the flowers in his hands.
"Why?"
Draco sighed. "I miss you, Harry."
He didn't know what to say to that.
Draco ran his fingers through his sopping wet hair and shivered. "I got you these," he said, shaking the flowers in his hands, "because I wanted you to know that I...well, that I'm serious." He held them out to Harry. It seemed natural to take them, and Harry did. They were cold and slimy and already half rotten. "I'm sorry." Draco rubbed his temples as he said it, it was a nervous twitch Harry had seen hundreds of times. Nervous, and sincere. "I'm so sorry."
It was almost too much; Harry wasn't sure what to do. It would be so easy to just take him home, it would be so easy to peel those clothes off him and tuck him into bed. And Draco would let him do it; he would let Harry hold him, he would purr into his throat again. It would be selective memory, pretending the bad memories were fantasies, nightmares, remembering only the best parts. He would remember that feeling of certainty, with Draco's body moving over him, the certainty that this was what love felt like. He would press himself against Draco's body and kiss him like he would never let him go again. They could pretend this made sense and it would be so nice.
I'm sorry. At one time it was all he wanted to hear, the words that would solve anything. Now it was six months later and Harry wasn't sure what to think. I'm sorry doesn't mean all that much, in the end. A tiny bandage on a gaping wound, one flickering flame on in the middle of a cold night, a porch light on a dark street waiting for someone to come home, someone who would never ever come home again.
"I've been an asshole, I know I have been." Harry could hardly disagree. "You deserve better." Harry looked up at him. Draco's lips were almost blue. "I love you."
Harry looked down at his hands, his trembling palms covered by dead stems. He was drunk and he thought that was probably saving him from speaking too quickly. What was he supposed to say?
"Please, Harry." Draco reached out and touched Harry's arm and it was more than Harry could bear. He closed his eyes and thanked God for the rain. "I'm sorry," Draco whispered, and Harry found himself enveloped in very cold, very wet arms. "Don't cry. I'm sorry."
Have an idea? Write it up and post it at veelainc.
*pleads* I have no idea how to end this sucker.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-19 07:56 pm (UTC)~;~~;~~;~~*~~;~~;~~;~
Harry stood there for a few moments, letting the rain soak him slowly, and, where Draco's arms were wrapped around him, more quickly. Harry knew that this is what he had wanted, but some thing else told him this was all wrong. That this was not right. And some where in him, a tie that had been binding him snapped, and he felt free.
Pushing Draco away, he looked into his eyes. "I can't. I needed closure. and now I've got it. And I can't do this with you any more. It's over."
Then he turned, heading toward home, and even through the drink, he could feel that all was right again. All was solved, all was finnished.
And Draco stood, in the rain, looking after the person who he had thought would take him back. Some things can't always happen as we plan them. He let his body drop to the chair, and sat there, stareing at nothing in the direction Harry went.
Fin.
~~;~~;~~;~~*~~;~~;~~;~~
meh. bite me.
~N~