Say Hello Before You Say Goodbye
The fire escape steps at the back of 'Fung Shing' are not the most comfortable place to sit. It seems fitting. Draco doesn't want comfort now, not now. It's too late for that.
Besides, he needs the distraction of the cold metal against his cheek, the coarse grip of the steps that he can feel through the soles of his shoes, and the railing digging into his back. He doesn't want to fall asleep here.
There is steam billowing out of the back of the building, bringing the scent of spices and far away places that he's never visited. He watches clouds of it catch the remnants of the street light that reach this far into the alley. The drifts of amber light are like vague memories of spells, though sometimes he thinks such thoughts are dreams, not memories. It's hard to be sure these days.
He shivers. He is late.
He pulls his collar up a bit higher, tries to make his coat cover more. It's good quality, and it still looks good, if you don't look too closely. A bit like him, Draco thinks with a laugh. The laugh turns into a cough. It lasts too long, and hurts. His throat is still sore from earlier -- some things he's mastered too well for his own good.
His scarf is thick, almost as cosy in appearance as the hideous creations the Weasley brats' mother used to knit for them each year. But it's some poor substitute for the cashmere he used to wear, and feels scratchy against his skin, like everything and everyone these days.
His skin is too thin. He'd looked at it in the dingy mirror in the public toilets under Leicester Square earlier. He had stared back at himself, a sallow shadow he barely recognised with an appropriately placed crack across his face. It wasn't just the unflattering fluorescent lighting or the shadows cast by the tourist (wad of tenners in hand) hovering over him that made him look like that.
Draco had always been proud of his skin. Pansy used to say it was the shade of buttermilk, and he'd never quite been certain if she'd been complimenting him or poking fun. Pansy was altogether too smart at times. Smart enough to get killed. Lucky Pansy.
He feels a spot of rain and curses. Not real curses, that's not an option now, just meaningless words that don't make him feel better, don't stop the rain, don't do anything.
He arrives eventually, slipping a bag discreetly into Draco's pocket, and taking the notes without checking them, even though it is absurd to imagine that anyone would be watching out here. He's reliable, even if his time-keeping isn't great. You have to be reliable in this trade.
There's not much in the bag, not enough to last long if he were going to split it into individual shots. But there's enough for what he has in mind. At least, he hopes there is.
He saw Potter yesterday. That would have been fine, but Potter had seen him. Draco had watched, unable to look away, as the blankness in those still familiar green eyes turned into bemused recognition, and finally into a shocky gaze that clung so hard it had felt like a punch in the gut. Once he would have laughed at Potter's attempt to disguise his horror, but then he'd always been in a position to look back in equal disgust.
It's hard to show the right air of dignity when you're being propositioned over a plate of steak and kidney pie and chips in a late night chippy. Harder still when you're not in a position to say no, or even finish your mug of stewed tea.
His room isn't much more comfortable than the steps in the alley, but at least it's dry here, so the contents of the little plastic bag won't get wet when he opens it. It doesn't matter that he's soaked to the skin, which is pretty much the same as saying soaked to the bone. Pneumonia takes time to set in, and so he's got no worries there.
Potter had looked well. His clothes fitted him, and he looked surprisingly good in a suit. It wasn't an off-the-peg suit from Marks and Sparks either. He must still have money, or be making it.
Draco supposes that adapting to a magic-free world must have been easier for him than most, if the stories about his Muggle upbringing were even partly true. Obviously the nonsense about being locked in a cupboard and bars on his windows were twisted tales, but if he'd not been around magic until he arrived at Hogwarts, that had to have been a better preparation for this life than Draco had had.
Then Potter had spoken.
"I'm sorry, Malfoy," he'd said, in a rich baritone that was as much a shock to Draco as the suit.
And hate had roiled back up, stronger than envy or the stranger emotions he'd once thought he felt towards this man. The man who'd saved the wizarding world by destroying it, destroying magic utterly.
He looks into the mirror in the corner of his bedsit. Sees what Potter saw. His hair is still blonde and long, but it's duller now. Draco refuses to use what he feels are artificial means to make it shine. Magic didn't count, everyone did that.
He's too thin. His collarbones look as frail as bird wings now he's unwrapped the dead weight of scarf. His wrists look fragile too, though he knows that they don't break that easily, even when he's held up by them. They do bruise though, and his skin shows the bruises all too well, betraying those not-really-secrets to anyone who cares to look (nobody). His is a rough job -- he counts himself lucky if he gets through a night with no more than swollen lips.
He doesn't look at his eyes.
He'd screamed at Potter. He doesn't remember what he'd said. He'd not been in a state to remember, not with what he'd taken before he'd started that night. But Potter should have known that interrupting business wasn't on.
He shivers again, shame not cold triggering it, but the cold keeping the shiver going.
It was weakness. It was weak and foolish like him, and he'd regret it forever. At least a day.
It wasn't love, this weakness. It was razor sharp hate that teetered on the verge of being some all-consuming emotion that would burn up his ice-cold body.
He did it for the heat, the burn of feeling something. Which made a change from doing it for the money, but left unfamiliar sour dregs of shame in his mouth. At least getting paid made it feel like a job, even if his office wasn't too traditional. He'd never felt shame about his work. It wasn't his fault there was nothing else he could do. He'd been trained for a different world.
Potter had been so polite, although there'd been no 'hello', no other greeting beyond that initial apology to suggest how many years it had been. He'd ignored Draco's tirade, dismissed the potential client quickly and efficiently.
"Your place or mine?" he'd queried, as though they were discussing where to go for dinner.
He'd gone down on Draco politely too, unzipping him carefully, making sure he was comfortable on the oddly out of place overstuffed sofa in his neat little flat, not making a fuss at being on his knees in his own living room. He'd peered up at him at intervals, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes, to see if Draco was all right. Maybe he'd expected Draco to be more vocal, more appreciative of what was really a very skilled blow job. But Draco had learned the benefits of keeping his mouth shut (unless it had a cock inserted), or, to be more accurate, had learned the penalties for not keeping his mouth shut, or not opening wide enough when some fat prick stuck his dick inside. So Potter had stopped checking after a while and just got on with it. And Draco had duly come, because what guy wouldn't in that situation?
And Potter had tucked him back carefully, gently, and that had almost, almost but not quite, been his undoing. He'd nearly started talking, nearly told Potter everything that he'd become, not just the obvious that anyone could see, but all the things beneath, that didn't show even though his skin was almost transparent.
And that was his real weakness. Not that he'd let his old rival see him at work, or that he'd let him blow him, or that they'd then gone through to Potter's little bedroom where they fucked on blue and white striped flannelette sheets. Not even that he hadn't managed to bring himself to whisper goodbye as he'd left the warmth of Potter's sleeping body.
He was too weak to trust Potter. He was a coward who let a little matter of hatred cloud his judgment.
Now of course it's too late. He has too many 'what if's' to live with even one more -- he'll never learn how to forget them all. And he really wants to sleep, somewhere it is warm all the time, and his thin skin won't matter.
He opens the bag, smiles at the contents. It's been over a day, he needs it so badly. And there is enough. Enough to sleep.
Harry knocks on the door, twice, three times. He's getting impatient. He knows he has the right flat, and Malfoy won't have gone out yet, not this early, not with the hours he must keep. He is certain he was on the verge of getting him to talk the night before last. He can help him, he's sure of it, if only Malfoy will let him. He'll just have to be more persuasive.
He looks at the bag of sugary doughnuts in his hand. Sex didn't work, maybe food will. Malfoy had looked like he could do with a good meal or three. And breakfast is a good place to start. He'll say hello and they'll take it from there.
He knocks again.