✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F O R T Y

"let us love each other to the end."

— George Sand

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Draco was in the shower when she entered his room. She'd given him a day to cool off before she tried to see him. He had been going through so much and it was hard for him to see past the layer of red. All that anger building up inside of him instead of allowing himself just one moment to feel the weight of what he'd done was costing him his relationship.

He listened as the door to the bathroom open slowly and out of the corner of his eye, he watched her slowly undress. Seconds later, she was opening the stall door and entering, moving up behind him as the cold flew in to sting his skin.

"Rowan," he breathed and she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her bare body against his backside. 

She shook her head, kissing his shoulder blade softly. "It's okay," she whispered, her lips like lava against him.

"I'm so sorry–"

"I know."

He turned to face her, watering running down his cheeks and into his eyes but he looked down at her. He cupped her face in his hands as the water hit her, flattening her hair. "I didn't mean to lash out at you, I was tired and–"

"I don't care," she muttered and her response shocked him. "You almost died, I think you get a pass for that."

He hated what he did to her, what he kept doing. Sometimes, he liked falling into his old habits. It was something about the anger, the easiness it was to unleash. It was as easy as kissing Rowan, as easy as breathing. It was like the part of him that bled and moved as his father was trying to test him, always playing with his head and heart. It was too easy to be like him, to succumb to that level of animosity.

It got harder and harder to separate himself from the man. The line between himself and his father was going thinner each day. He blamed the mark on his arm for most of it, for allowing himself to become apart of something so cruel. He wanted to prove himself, he wanted to be someone his father could be proud of and he thought by being mean, by being someone so unlike himself, that it would finally close the gap between the two men. They would somehow be father and son again instead of master and boy. 

He didn't need to prove himself in a world like this, the one he accidentally helped build. Yet, when he looked at Rowan he could see a light he had never seen before. She had found him, reached inside his chest and found a heart he was sure had shriveled up. Her choice to fall into this darkness in order to save him from a fate clearly worse than death was a sacrifice he would never had made for anyone before now. It was still so strange to him, how close they'd become.

She told him she loved him. She had whispered it into his ears and his whole body turned to fire. His blood turned into liquid flames and he had never felt higher than he had in those moments when she had spread those words against his skin and into his mouth. Before her, before seeing the truth of his reality, he had never believed someone could love him. Not truly. His mother was different, family was supposed to love you, they were supposed to be there for you but he had learned from his father even that was limited and not promised.

His mother's love was true but not as true as Rowan Greer's burning love. When he looked into her eyes, he saw hope of something better. The future was bright when she was near and he never thought he would ever find something so light and colorful outside his own life. Everything he'd ever known was dark and gray and bleak, there was no hope before now. Their crusade could work, he knew it could every time he saw Rowan's brows furrow in thought or as she gnawed on her bottom lip as her mind took over her.