Impertinent

Blaise fingers the tip of the sword and grins as it pricks his finger. Still quite sharp after sitting for so long unused. The sword, he believes, is some sort of Malfoy family heirloom, not to be handled by those with anything but pure Malfoy blood running through their veins. Its case, with its deep green velvet lining lies open behind him, the work of a couple of week's careful observation and some time spent actually paying attention in charms the previous year. Draco will be furious.

Blaise doesn't bother trying to keep the smirk from playing across his face as he dodges and parrys, sparing with his own shadow against the uneven wall. The sword sings through the air, swish and hum and whistle. The honed edge would easily slice through bone. Possibly it is cutting the air itself.

There is a shout from the far end of the corridor and Draco appears, silver grey, silver grey, as he stalks past lighted weapon cases and into shadow and back again. He has worked himself into quite a snit by the time he reaches Blaise. Blaise, still dancing with the blade (swish hum whistle), pays Draco no mind.

Until. There is a hand on his wrist and a growl of "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Zabini?" in his ear.

Draco's anger seems to have taken on much larger proportions than Blaise had thought possible for this particular inanimate object. He turns toward Draco, the sword between them. Blaise's hand on the hilt. Draco's hand on Blaise.

"Practicing."

"Practicing?"

"That's what I said, yes."

"Practicing what exactly."

"Advanced perturbing of Malfoys."

Blaise wrenches his hand out of Draco's grasp, the blade passing dangerously close to his ear in the process. At first Draco isn't sure if Blaise's seeming carelessness with the sword is intentional. Though, judging from the way he was wielding it earlier, it was. Bastard. And, Blaise looks better holding that sword than Draco ever will, must be something to do with his darker skin hair eyes. Bastard. It's his fucking sword, it's got a bloody dragon hilt.

Draco holds out his hand, an imperious gesture. "I'll take that back now."

"Oh, you will, will you?" The words sneak out around lips twisted into a smirk, smooth as silk.

Taking a step closer to Draco, Blaise raises the sword again and runs it slowly from Draco's left shoulder, across the grey silk of his shirt, and slices off the top button with the tip of the blade. The perfect shell button hits the floor with a barley audible tick. As cool steel hits warm skin for the barest instant Draco lets out a hiss, not of pain, but of surprise. Blaise grins. Draco knows this game. They've been playing it all summer. He is tired of it.

"It is a Malfoy family heirloom, mine by right as heir of the Malfoy estate." The second button hits the floor.

"I don't dispute that." Third button.

"You are not meant to touch it." Blaise knows this, of course, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered opening the case in the first place.

"You know perfectly well that I'm not terribly good at complying with things I'm meant to do." Fourth button.

"Maybe it's time for you to learn."

"Alas, if only I could find a proper teacher." With a shrug and an exaggerated roll of the eyes, on Blaise's part, the fifth button is gone. Draco's shirt is beginning to slip off his shoulders.

Suddenly Draco is on Blaise like a crazed weasel. No warning. This, apparently, is the last straw. Draco's hands seem to be everywhere at once, rage propelling him forward and pushing Blaise against the glass case behind him, hard corner on shoulder blade. In a feat of, strength? luck? that impresses even Blaise, Draco has the sword in his hand and is brandishing it at Blaise, steel on steely gaze.

"You didn't actually think that I had been raised amongst such fine weaponry and not been taught how to use it did you?" To be perfectly honest, which, of course, he won't, Blaise hadn't thought about it at all. He'd just wanted the sword. Consequences are not something he troubles himself with, unless they are to his advantage.

Blaise shrugs. Draco advances and, though it is not an original action, he begins to remove the buttons from Blaise's shirt.

Blaise, it seems, does not feel the same chill running down his spine that Draco did when the only thing separating steel from his skin was fabric. Blaise only looks amused. Perhaps it was his intention that Draco acquire the sword? Perhaps this is all going as Blaise intends? There is no telling, really. Blaise never divulges any of his secrets, he only probes into those of others. It doesn't really matter what Blaise thinks is going on though does it? Not as long as Draco is the one holding the sword. Not as long as it stays that way. And it does, for three minutes and seventeen seconds to be exact. Two minutes and forty eight seconds into which Blaise finds himself flat on his back, Draco straddling his chest, blade pressed to his throat.

There is something vaguely comforting about the weight, what little Draco's slender body has to offer in that area anyway, pressing down on him and the way Draco sneers, once again convinced that he is the one who is in control. Blaise twists his head up and away from Draco, exposing more of his neck, and runs his tongue lightly over his upper lip. He feels Draco's thighs tighten over his ribs at the sight of that tongue. The cool steel presses closer. Blaise jerks his head back as blood blossoms beneath silver.

Blaise actually looks surprised for a moment and Draco twists his face into the most malicious glare he can muster. Hand at his throat, Blaise touches warmth, and wet, and his fingers come away tinted red.

"You cut me."

"It seems that way, yes," Draco sneers, smugly satisfied, his chest heaving slightly, a fine sheen of sweat turning his skin silver in the dim light.

"This is not acceptable."

Blaise grabs the blade with his left hand and pushes it away from him ignoring its slicing into his palm, the blood flows down his wrist. The gesture, the angry thrust of hand at sword, the disregard for pain, is somehow more violent than the drawing of blood itself, or Draco's holding the sword to his throat. Draco backs away from Blaise, the sound of the sword clattering to the floor is obscene in the sudden silence.

One, two quick strides, and Blaise has the sword in his hand again. Draco is now sitting half under the case amongst their discarded shirts. Blaise advances on him, sword first, but stops just short of the blade scraping across Draco's chest, raises the sword, wipes it clean on his jeans, and places it carefully back on its velvet blanket. Draco is no longer watching Blaise, but the blood dripping between the fingers of his left hand and onto the fine Italian marble.

"Let me get this straight, you wanted the sword because you weren't meant to have it. You wouldn't give it back to me because I wanted it, and in order to keep me from cutting you again you cut yourself." Blaise nods. "You're mad."

"Some would call it genius."

"Impudent fuck."

"And, some would call that an insult."

Blaise slowly bends over Draco, trailing his fingers across Draco's chest. He stops, his mouth a fraction of an inch from Draco's ear, breath hot, yet cool, as it snakes over sweaty skin. Draco is sure Blaise is going to bite him. He closes his eyes. He doesn't move. Visions of white and red, teeth and blood, flash behind his eyes. But the sharp stab of teeth sinking into earlobe never comes. Blaise's fingers continue their journey across Draco's collar bone, over his shoulder. Then: silk sliding over skin. Draco opens his eyes to see Blaise, shirt in hand, turn, with one of his irritatingly fluid movements, and disappear into the shadows that crowd the hall.