nevermind your misled heart.

Blaise tilts his head, almost a lazy movement. From one moment to the next, he tightens his fingers, pressing in.

"Other times, my prince, your thorns are so sharp I hurt myself doing it." A pause. "I've only myself to blame, of course."

Something shakes loose in Draco's chest, like branches from which all the snow has fallen, struck by a sudden blow. He feels lighter for it in the aftermath, has to bear all of his weight down, forcibly, to keep from swaying. Holds himself like that for a long time, still as a sculpture, eyes heavy on the protracted touch of Blaise's fingers, anchoring there, too.

"Perhaps you should stop."

Some half-aware sense of Draco, perhaps communicated through the warm place his palm presses against thin fabric, makes Blaise sit up straighter and settle his other hand on Draco's hip, firm, in support. And perhaps a touch possessive.

An intake of breath, stretching time before he makes his voice steady, light enough to ask, "Do you want me to?"

"Sometimes." The word splits in the middle, a tiny, hairline fracture in Draco's voice, nearly imperceptible. He doesn't look up, into Blaise's face, but he feels both points of contact like brands on his skin, and swallows. "I don't like hurting you. Even if it is," he tries for something like their earlier teasing, "your own fault."

It sounds unconvinced, and thin, like a paper shield.

Blaise drops his eyes at the faultline he more feels than hears in Draco's voice, something hollowing out in his chest. His grip tightens hard, and then eases, as if uncertain of its welcome.

"If it is my own fault, I suppose I deserve it." Fingers stroke along the ridge of a hipbone, gently enough to be an apology, if one looks for it.

Draco angles his face away, something pulling in his jaw. "Don't talk like that. I don't... "

He struggles for the right words, but they all seem to acquire edges the moment he thinks them, dreadful and sharp and not what he wants to say at all.

"I don't want you to talk like that," Draco finishes, a little lamely. Realizing this has gone rather beyond baiting, very quickly. His heart gives a tiny kick in his chest.

Some difficult emotion draws at the shape of Blaise's lips, catching in his eyes under lowered lashes. His hand has curved around the back of Draco's knee, lightly holding him in place, fingers barely touching a sensitive place.

"How should I talk?" His voice has gone a little taut, as though he too has trouble finding the right words. "You know I'm no good at lying to you." A beat. "You don't really want me to."

It's hovering just on the edge of a question.

In a lightning quick movement, Draco raises one hand to the level of his hip, where Blaise is steadying him, fingers closing, vise-like, around Blaise's wrist, so tightly the bones seem to grind together. He looks up in the same breath, searching out Blaise's gaze, mouth tight, eyes bright and hard as pinpricks of starlight.

"Am I hurting you?" he asks, by way of answer.

Blaise meets and holds his gaze, leaning forward infinitesimally, as though Draco has broken some silent hold. His eyes are dark, a little wide, something sparking in them with silent intensity.

"No." It's the truest answer. The pain of Draco's fingers pressing into his pulse is a small thing next to the heated thrill of the unflinching connection. His breath catches very slightly. "Am I hurting you, Draco?"

Draco’s gaze stutters a little wildly over the lines of Blaise’s face, the initial startled shock at Draco’s touch subsumed almost immediately by something else, and it’s as though a floodgate has broken, the way Blaise is looking at him now - open and hungry and like this is all he wants in the world.

It’s terrible. It tightens Draco’s throat. Blaise will almost certainly bruise.

With a small noise, Draco leans down, almost far enough to touch their foreheads together. His breathing has quickened.

“Yes, damn you,” he says, and closes the distance, kissing him.

There is just time enough for Blaise’s breath to trip as the whispered words slide between his ribs, and he reels from them even as Draco’s mouth finds his.

The kiss is hard and ungentle, hungry in a way the bruising hold on his wrist isn’t, and Blaise pulls against it a little desperately, unbalancing Draco enough that a moment later they’re awkwardly tangled together on the edge of the chair, Blaise tasting a whisper of blood where Draco’s teeth have grazed his lip. Under the arcing heat in his blood, his chest aches softly.

Draco catches himself with a knee between Blaise’s legs, bracing it on the seat of the chair, body angling forward in a slanted line; Blaise’s hands are twin points that prop up the rest of him. He feels the muscles in Blaise’s thighs tighten and clench around him, rather than widening his legs to make room, and Draco fists his free hand in the front of Blaise’s shirt, shuddering, their limbs interlocking precariously.

He breaks the kiss with a tight, noisy exhale, shoulders hunched, feeling for a single moment like a trapped animal who has grown to prefer its captivity.

Then Blaise’s heart pounds beneath his fist, and Draco presses down, into the solid beat of it, kissing him again, once and hard, and quickly.

“Blaise,” Draco says, eyes closed.

Blaise stops for a breath just outside the door, feeling Draco within and needing the moment to still himself, to breathe. Only a moment, that's as long as he can endure waiting.

His eyes seek Draco's as soon as he steps through the door, instinct.

“Amante.” Quiet murmur. Looking at Draco, and only moving after a heartbeat, closer.

"You're out of wine." Immediate. Draco's voice is sharp with reproach and something subtler than that, unhappy and thin. His mouth moves, flickering, and he looks away, pale gaze steady on the table's surface. "You were gone a while."

Blaise, silent, drops his long coat and settles next to Draco on the couch, close but not touching.

Softly, "I know." His tan is darker, almost burned across his nose. Cheekbones a little too sharp, eyes tired. "I apologize. For the wine."

"They asked for you." Clipped syllables. "I told them you weren't dead."

A sidelong glance. Draco stands on a tight exhale, waiting a beat before reaching a hand toward Blaise without looking at him.

A heartbeat, then Blaise’s fingers close tightly around Draco’s wrist, over the pulse there, and he stands up close enough for for Draco to feel his breath on the nape of his neck. His other hand unerringly finds the place where the mark is hidden under the shirt.

“It took a while to find my way home,” he says, quietly, but with an edge of something more difficult. "I'm here."

"And are you under the impression," Draco turns, curling pale fingers into his own palm, eyes catching Blaise's unflinchingly, "that I’m in the habit of being patient about that sort of thing?"

With a small frown, Draco pulls slowly against Blaise's grip. Not to sever it, but to draw him closer.

Blaise shifts at once, as if it’s choreographed, tightening an arm around Draco’s waist so they end up chest against chest, the pulse quick and hard in Blaise’s throat.

“You’re not in the habit of being patient about anything, Draco.” Blaise’s tone is quiet, but his eyes are very dark, searching Draco’s expression. “It is a wonder you are still here.”

Draco's eyes narrow even as his lips part at the contact, Blaise's body flush with his own, vitality and heat. Blaise is no longer touching the mark on Draco's back, but the weight of that touch lingers, as though sunk indelibly into Draco's flesh, as permanent as the mark itself.

"Is it a wonder?" A dark, displeased edge in it, cutting. "I hope you're more observant when it counts, Blaise."

Blaise’s breath arches, slightly, as if the words were a measured blow. He drops his gaze to Draco’s mouth, seeking something softer than the sharpness, more forgiving.

“Now is when it counts,” he murmurs, past a tightness in his throat. “More than any other time.” His fingers, still around Draco’s wrist, tighten a fraction. "Are you angry with me, Draco?"

Draco's heart skips over a beat, the next one pounding bruisingly into his breastbone.

"Do I seem angry?" Softly, at odds with the rigid line of his body. "I’d no idea. I thought I was being perfectly cordial.” Draco pulls at the edge of Blaise's shirt as though it's offended him personally, fingers closing tightly over the ridge of his hip. "You lost weight. Don't they have food in the desert?"

Blaise’s breath stutters again as Draco touches bare skin, and his arm tightens around Draco’s waist, hand seeking upwards to find the mark again and pressing his fingers in, punctuating the pattern there. The magic thrills to his touch, kicking at his pulse.

“You’re being perfectly impossible,” he whispers, a sharp, vulnerable edge buried in his voice. “Draco.”

Draco shudders a little at the touch, shoulders hitching, the skin there always more sensitive than he expects. Or maybe it's only that it's Blaise who is touching it.

"I don't like you leaving," Draco says, the words reluctant, barbed in defense, "yet you make a career of it."  Draco leans into him hard, eyes closing on a breath. A beat passes, and then, "I don't want to - " He swallows. "I don't mean to fight with you."

The silence stretches. Blaise bends his head, trying to catch his breath against the curve of Draco’s neck, against the pulse hammering in his throat. He is slowly tracing the outline of the mark with his fingers, mapping more than just the small stretch of skin.

“I know, I - “ His voice sounds rough, worn by desert sands. Slowly, he relinquishes Draco’s wrist and twines his fingers into pale hair instead. “I don’t like leaving you.”

"Don't you?" Draco's mouth hovers over Blaise's ear, brushing the shell of it. His voice is cool, and not particularly kind, as though at a truth he dislikes and keeps at arm's length. "And if I tell you it's your bed I've been sleeping in each night for the past week on the off chance you'd be back?" It should be vulnerable, admitting to it. Instead it lands like a carefully aimed knife strike. "Liar.” Softly. “You do like it."

Blaise makes a soft, breathless sound, sharp tension stiffening his spine. He tightens his hand in Draco’s hair and pulls, not gently, snapping their gazes together.

“I don’t lie to you.” Under the heavy tan, there is heated color across his cheekbones, something bright and pained in his gaze. “I hate parting from you. I can’t quite breathe when i am away from you. I - you’re right about… I like that you’re here.” Blaise tightens his shoulders, a hard defensive line. “That you - that my absence leaves a mark.”

Draco leans closer, pulling at the tight grip in his hair to the point of pain so that he can graze Blaise's mouth with his. The gray of his eyes has sharpened, darkly amused and almost challenging.

"Technically I think you left the mark," he says, low, sounding less steady. He drags his fingertips slowly along Blaise's side, not entirely idle in their intent, feeling for new scars. His pulse bounds in his throat. "You like that, too."

There is a scar on Blaise’s ribs, low on his right side, another deep in his left shoulder that Draco will only find later, with their clothes off. Blaise’s breath trips sharply against Draco’s mouth, and before he can think better of it, he pushes roughly into the other and closes the distance, kissing Draco hard, hungrily, senses thrilling violently to every point of contact.

Suddenly, abruptly, he breaks the kiss, fingers digging into Draco’s shoulders and whispers breathlessly, lips nearly touching, “Fuck you, why do you always do that? You know I’m dying to fuck you, you don’t have to bloody stab me.”

Draco catches himself with both hands against Blaise's waist, thumbs digging ruthlessly into the grooves along Blaise's hips. a smile tugs at his lips, quicksilver and fleeting, sharp. Heat floods him, a heavy ache in the pit of his stomach that pools outward, sparking along his nerves. "Are we fighting after all?"

He kisses Blaise before he can answer, long and deliberately slow, teeth catching Blaise's lower lip hard in warning when he tries to skew the pace of it toward something swifter and more demanding.

"Sorry," he adds, sounding breathless and not very sorry at all. "I could stop."

“Liar,” Blaise hisses in retaliation, breathless and pressed flush up against Draco, perilously close to discarding coherent thought in favor of the heat darkening the grey of Draco’s eyes to a storm. “We can fight. Unless you’d rather do this.”

He dips his head to mouth at Draco’s throat, grazing teeth across the fluttering pulse there, and presses a hand into Draco’s lower back, pushing heated, heavy magic into the skin, perhaps a touch vindictively.

The way Draco arches in his arms makes his heart kick rebelliously.