Prompt: (Soulmate AU) Pain demands to be felt. Sometimes by more than one.
“Wow, look at you, Mr. Cranky. What’s up?” Blaise greets Draco too cheerfully in a gloomy London Monday morning.
“Shut it, Zabini. It’s too early to deal with your shits.” Draco snaps.
“Whoa, okay, something is clearly wrong. Wanna share?” Draco almost snaps for the second time in the morning, but the concern in Blaise’s eyes softens his cranky side.
“It’s nothing, just woke up this morning and sore all over the place.”
“Soulmate things?” Draco only nods. “I hate this thing you know, I mean one day we live for 21 years and the next second we’re being tied to this one particular person which is a pain in the ass because we have to share their pain.”
“Well, you have exactly 21 years to fool around. It’s your fault to waste it. And by the way, you don’t have to search for your soulmate, you know.”
“Yeah, well, I would give my life to stop worrying while waking up with cuts all over my body. Thank you very much.”
“Good luck finding that klutz of your life. I’ll wait for the invitation.” Draco finally can grin for the first time in that morning before taking his ordered coffee, and leave the small coffee shop.
Draco Malfoy always wonders about his soulmate. On the day he turned 21, there was suddenly bruises on his ribs. He couldn’t sleep that day, worrying whether the person he is being tied to will survive the day or not, as more bruises and cuts kept coming. He relaxed once he can feel the repeated stinging pain of needle on the corner of his eyebrow. That day never stops, and Draco never stops worrying, even after one year of that dreadful night.
Now that he’s 22, he already can control his emotions. Some days he’s worried sick inside his office as the pain just keeps resonating over and over, but some other days, like today, he only feels irritated as he woke up with tenderness all over his body. He sometimes feels grateful that his job won’t cause the person on his other end any more pain than they needs to endure, but most days he feels so irritated that he cuts himself on purpose to upset the other person. Being a healer is very safe when you know what you’re doing.
Sometimes he wonders what kind of job that his soulmate has, but nowadays he’s certain that it must be resonating with the word “Auror” or anything similar to that. Nothing can cause more pain than being in that bloody department of the ministry. Unfortunately not once he found the injured Auror that belongs to him. Not yet.
“Ow, fuck! Seriously, woman, blow your hot drinks before you drink it. You can at least have self preservation if not to save your soulmate tongue!” Pansy snaps to no one while drinking her ice Americano. Blaise laughs openly at that.
“It seems like I’m not the only one who has a klutz as my soulmate.”
“Yeah, she’s a klutz sometimes, not as bad as yours though.” Both Draco and Blaise stare at her in shock.
“Wh- What? She? Have you met her?” Draco asks incredulously.
“Well, no, but yesterday I felt a strong pain on my lower region, so I believe my soulmate is a she.”
“Are you sure? I mean they could get kicked in that area, or bump into something.” Pansy rolls her eyes.
“Draco, darling, I know what cramp pain feels like, so I strongly believe that she’s a girl.”
“Well, congratulation! You’re one step ahead to stop losing your mind out of worry.” Blaise says while hugging Pansy.
“Good on you, love—” Draco’s sentence is being cut by a painful blow on his stomach. Fuck. The next blow is so strong; it knocks him to his knees. His hand is tightly gripping the desk beside him while the other clutching his side stomach. The next wave of pain comes barreling through his body before his mind can catch up on how to breathe properly. He can feel the blood rushing out of his face, this pain is different. He doesn’t feel anything but pain before when this attack comes, but now he feels something else, something worse. Despair.
“Draco! Draco, can you hear me?!” Pansy’s panic voice break through his pain filled mind, but Draco can’t bring himself to answer her. He can clearly feel the despair on his soulmate bond. He can feel how the other person starts losing his will to live. No. Don’t. Please, I haven’t found you. You have to survive this one. He can hear his heavy breathing when the pain finally stops, or at least reduces to dull throbbing in his body. When he is finally aware of his surrounding, someone bursts through his office door. Pansy and Blaise, who are both kneeling beside Draco with concern eyes, suddenly glare to the nurse on the door.
“What do you want?” Pansy snaps.
“Healer Draco, there’s an emergency patient in an immediate need of surgery.” She speaks in rapid pace. Draco is still trying to catch his breathing.
“Where are the other healers? He can’t perform a surgery, right now.” Blaise asks politely.
“There are no other healers, please, he’ll die if you don’t operate him.”
“Pans, Blaise, it’s alright. I’m okay. I’ll be in the room in two minutes.” With that Draco stands up and goes to the operation room. The nurse is already there. “Just us two?”
“Just us two, the others are not available due to the recent attack on the ministry.” Draco steps into the light and freezes when he sees his patient’s face. Freckles with ginger hair. Ronald Weasley.
“Well, it really has been awhile, Weasley.” Draco performs the quite long surgery in just 4 hours, effectively removing the long painful metal from Ron’s shoulder and picking up all the scraps after he successfully undo the curse Ron has been shot with. The dull throbs never stop while he’s conducting the surgery, but nothing that he can ease with a small hiss or sharp intake of breath. Draco was just cleaning the blood on the Ron’s stitches when the surgery room’s door slams open with a force. Draco snaps at the nurse on the door, who turns out to be his apprentice/assistant. “Can’t you see that this surgery is not finished yet?! There are rules to follow, Rachel!”
“I’m sorry, Draco, I can do whatever you’re doing to that patient right now. This one is more important.” Rachel says in panic, and without permission she pulls a patient inside the surgery room. Draco’s heart drops to the floor when he sees the patient. Harry Potter is literally dripping blood to the floor. Bruises all over the place, but what concerns Draco is his split up chest that is oozing a scary amount of blood.
“Fuck, what happened to him?!”
“I don’t know, bloody Auror mission had gone wrong, probably? And this is not the worst of it.” With that Rachel show him the chunk of metal ripping through Potter’s thigh, deep enough to rip a tendon, deep enough to forbid him from running for the rest of his life. Draco sighs tiredly, why did Harry bloody Potter love to do something that will accelerate his own death? Merlin, help him.
“Uh- you, nurse over there, just bring Weasley to his room and clean him there. Rachel helps me with this one.” Draco says frantically. He cleans all the blood from Harry’s body while Rachel is already supplying the lifeless body with blood transfusion. Draco recognizes the curse from when he was forced to witness the Death Eater tortured their prisoner. It was a special signature curse from one of the Death Eater he hates the most, Dolohov. So, Harry has been dueling with Dolohov and what? Lose? A shudder rips through Draco’s spine. “How’s the other one?” Draco asks Rachel.
“Yes, the other one he’s been fighting.” Draco snaps.
“Oh, yes, the other one is dead.” Oh, so he won. Thank Merlin, he won. Not in a very good shape though, he could die in a few minutes if Draco doesn’t act. Thank Merlin, Draco knows the counter curse. Draco points his wand on the open wound while muttering the incantation. His wand is rigid in his hand, his wand is not supposed to move or the incantation will fail. Apparently it’s an impossible task, because right when the spell works his chest fills with pain. Draco cries out while his knees buckle. Fuck. He tries once again with the same result. Fuck.
“I think you need to help me. Make sure that I don’t move, especially my wand, or else the spell won’t work.”
“Apparently the counter curse hurts as much as the curse, so unless you’re doing the counter curse, I need you to help me stay still.”
“But –you’re not –but that means –your pain? –you and him?” Poor Rachel can’t even conjure a sentence.
“Yes, apparently fate has a weird way of playing with my life.” With that, Draco stands up with Rachel pointing her wand at Draco’s hand, casting spell so that his hand won’t move anywhere. After a few minutes with excruciating pain, Draco manages to close the wound on Harry’s chest.
“Alright, you have to bear the pain, Draco. I’m going to pull this metal out of his thigh.”
“Do it in one swift clean motion, or else you’ll rip whatever chance he has to run again.” Rachel points her wand at the large piece of metal. “On three. One. Two. Three.” Draco screams as the metal is being pulled out of Harry’s thigh. After that, they both finish their work on Harry Potter, releasing him to his room after his condition stabilizes in two hours.
Draco stays with Potter in his room after the bloody tiring surgery, catching up with the sleep he has lost over worrying for his bloody soulmate –Merlin, his soulmate is sodding Harry fucking Potter, how is that even possible? Now it’s clear why he never stops getting bruises and cut, but that can wait until later, right now a nap sounds really good.
Harry wakes up in a very familiar white room. Of course he’s in St. Mungo, he was barely alive when he managed to save Ron from Dolohov curse. He was very certain that he will not see another day, but here he is, lying soundlessly in a hospital bed. He feels another presence beside him, but he turns only to find a very familiar shade of blond. Malfoy. Malfoy looks so peaceful while sleeping, his head being supported by his hands on the bed, back rising slowly with each breath he takes. Somehow Malfoy looks breathtakingly innocent while sleeping, and that lures Harry in because the next thing he knows is he’s stroking the blond strands gently while willing for Malfoy to sleep a little longer.
That jinxes it though because now Malfoy is awake. Very much awake and very much confuse with Harry’s hand on his hair. Harry retracts his hand quickly, beyond embarrassed.
“How are you, Potter?” Draco asks professionally, so Harry sucks a deep breath to muster all his courage and apathy to answer him.
“Sore.” That makes Draco chuckles.
“Yeah, no wonder. The counter curse was suck, but the ripping a chunk of metal from your thigh part was a bitch.” Harry can only stares at Draco, he’s speaking in a very weird way. “Congratulation on killing Dolohov, though. Weasley is safe and sound, sleeping like a baby in the next room. Just friendly reminders though, the next time you’re getting beaten up, don’t start losing hope on living. The pain I can handle, the despair just simply makes me insane.” Draco smiles at him softly with concern in his grey orbs. “Your chest is fine, your thigh –not so much–”
“Malfoy.” Harry tries to cut his unnecessary professionalism.
“I’m afraid you have ripped your tendon, a physical therapy could–”
“Help you to heal it faster, but—”
“Draco!” Harry finally snaps, Draco looks at Harry with annoyance.
“Stop interrupting me! You cannot run, Potter! You ripped your tendon. It will heal, but you cannot run until then. There I said my piece, stop interrupting me, Merlin. What do you want?”
“Are you saying what I think you are saying?”
“I’m not saying anything, what do you mean?”
“I’m saying about you can handle the pain. Are you saying that you’re my soulmate?” Harry asks exasperatedly. Draco’s face goes with recognition.
“Oh, that, yeah. I thought we already established that by what I’m saying. What you need prove?” Draco doesn’t wait for an answer; he just casually cuts his finger on the paper that he brought.
“Ow! Yeah, no, stop hurting yourself, I didn’t say I need any proof, you git!”
“What? It’s just a paper cut, you usually gives me new bruises for every week.” Draco says innocently which draws Harry more and more.
“Just come here, please.” Draco stands beside his bed, but Harry needs him closer, so he pulls Draco’s white coat collar down, effectively crushing their mouths together. Their kisses are gentle, and somehow fiercely sweet. “God, I never thought I’d live to see this day. I finally find you.” Harry says between kisses.
Thank Merlin, you survived. Thank you. I found you now.
P.S. Sorry this is not a very good one. I’ll probably rewrite this in the near future.
