If It Were Up To Me (Drarry)
L and I were having a discussion about the use of present vs. past tense in literature & fic and she challenged me to write a drabble purely in the subjunctive mood. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I present this, which only about half-way fills it. I played fast and loose with the subjunctive and only about half these sentences are actually in it (many are conditionals, or causal clauses, but not actually the subjunctive).
535 words, rated T, warnings for smoking, allusions to alcohol & sex (but none onscreen), bit of an ambiguous ending in terms of where they stand with each other
If Draco were a better man, he would not be standing outside Harry’s door, watching the rain drip down the silvery front window pane. Of course, if Harry were a smarter man, he would have left Draco to the soaking downpour. He probably should have never had Draco over that very first time, or the time after that, or the myriad of empty wine bottles and stubbed cigarettes and condom wrappers since that first time.
“I’m sorry I’m getting your floor wet,” Draco hummed. He might have been staring at the slow drag of Harry’s feet back across the doorstep, but he might have been just looking at the floor instead, since it was a little easier to be not-in-love with Harry’s feet than Harry’s face.
“Maybe I don’t mind it,” answered Harry. “Maybe I don’t mind if you get my floor soaking wet with all the rain in the sky.”
Draco thought he could just fall into the corner of Harry’s lips and never resurface, stay right there in the little curve that always heralded one of Harry’s smiles. Draco thought he wouldn’t mind that so much. The corner of Harry’s lips could be a nice place to stay, always warm, always soft, always touching him.
“I shouldn’t have come here.” Draco wished that he had stayed home, far away from the plush pink of Harry’s lips, the awkward, anxious twist of his hands, the too-earnest tilt to his eyes. He wished he could go back to the start and do it all over again.
“I thought we were bad for each other.”
“I still think we might be.”
The steady drip of rain against the windows made it impossible that the lack of words could be so heavy between them, but it was. It was a good thing that there was the noise of cars outside, the kettle boiling, the Floo-fire crackling distantly, since all the buzz made it so it wasn’t so quiet between them.
“I’m looking for a future,” Harry wouldn’t meet his eyes, “and for somebody who might want to share it with me. And why shouldn’t I? I think… I think that maybe I deserve a future sort of a person and not a Floo call past midnight kind of person.”
“I wish that for you,” Draco offered quietly. He didn’t add, “If it were up to me, I’d be that for you.”
“Maybe we should have a drink. I think I’ve got another bottle of that ‘83 red you like.”
“A cigarette,” Draco interrupted, “I propose a cigarette instead, as I insist that we’re both clear headed. We shouldn’t be drinking wine when we decide whether this is the beginning or the end.”
Hanging halfway out the back window, trying to keep the lit end of the cigarette from the rain, knees banging against Harry’s, Draco thought maybe it didn’t matter if this was a beginning or an end. Maybe it was just this: rain drops, whole and shining against Harry’s skin, the slow curl of smoke into the night air, and this certain closeness, cherished and rare.
If Draco was a braver man, he would have said every word, every love declaration, every bit of Harry that he had come to care about and to know, he would have said it all out loud.
But he wasn’t a brave man, so he didn’t say a word.
