In a Good Way

In a Good Way

Draco is dying.

Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it. No one dares to talk about it. However, Draco knows that they know, knows that they stare after him as he walks by, and he learns to hate leaving his estate. How could he have expected them not to know? He is a Malfoy, after all, and news regarding the name Malfoy travels quickly.

It starts when he continuously becomes sick. Draco refuses to see a Healer, but Blaise insists, even drags him to St. Mungo's. Draco supposes that he should be grateful that Blaise does care in his own weird way, but how can he when he'd rather remain in ignorance about his condition even though he hates not knowing things the most?

They tell him that his chronic sickness is because of AIDS. Draco has heard of it, a little about its causes and consequences and dangers, but he has never paid any heed to it. Why should he have? He is the scion of an old wealthy family, and some Muggle disease can't touch him. Draco is deadly wrong.

Draco must have contracted the fatal virus from his father since Blaise is clean, still clean. Lucius probably received it from some Muggle whore he had raped. Draco always did wonder why his parents died so young.

Blaise cannot receive the disease. Some Muggle scientists have formulated a theory after much research that people with ancestors who survived the Bubonic Plague on both maternal and paternal sides are immune to the deadly virus, and, of course, Blaise is one of the lucky few. Draco hates and envies him for it, and when they fuck, he is always particularly vicious and brutal, but Blaise never complains, never says a word.

He is on the verge of mass murder when they tell him that he cannot be cured, yet he must take Muggle medicine to slow down the virus's destruction. Blaise draws him away and talks to him quietly, one hand cupping his cheek in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture. Blaise then goes back and receives a prescription for the medicine.

Draco refuses to enter the Muggle substitute for an Apothecary, farmacy, is it? He stands stubbornly outside while Blaise walks in to retrieve his medicine. Blaise comes back with his face strained and tight, and Draco, seeing Blaise, explodes inside, grabbing Blaise roughly and quickly pulling him away.

He refuses to take the numerous pills Blaise bought. Blaise, unwilling to simply acquiesce to Draco's unreasonable demands, grounds the pills up and mixes them into Draco's nightly tea, the one he takes every night after dinner without fail. Draco knows Blaise does it, and he still drinks his tea, knowing that Blaise does it for his well-being. Blaise knows that he knows, and Draco knows that Blaise knows he knows, but they pretend that they don't for the sake of appearing as if nothing is different.

Blaise dotes upon Draco in his own way. No one else would have called it doting, but Blaise is no longer as harsh and cold as he had been, though no one but Draco can discern the minute difference. His voice and eyes do not soften, but his touch softens, and he is no longer all sharp edges but soft angular curves.

As the days wear on, Draco's intense, restrained emotions begin to leak out, and he lashes out at Blaise and the house-elves and even the few guests who come to visit. Blaise receives the brunt of it, yet he never complains, never voices a word when Draco hits him, bites him, hurts him, makes him bleed. Draco does feel regret when his outbursts subside, but his shame and pride prevents him from apologizing even though his heart breaks each time he sees dark bruises blossoming on Blaise's fair skin.

He finally cracks one day after slapping Blaise and watching the red bloom on Blaise's cheek, having felt Blaise's minute flinch when skin had come into contact with skin though Blaise remained silent all the while. All of his emotions completely overtake him, and he lapses against Blaise, crying. Blaise holds him, gently patting his back; a comfortable and warm silence falls around them, and Draco feels immense comfort from such a small but caring gesture.

He realizes that they are both different men now, no longer the cold and ruthless men they had been before they learned that he had AIDS, almost certain that they had already changed even long before that. Draco's fatal disease had affected them both, and maybe they had broken their promise of not falling in love with each other even before they took the oath.

That night, when Blaise wraps his arms around him, Draco thinks that he had been right, that both of them had been deliberately ignorant of the promise that was never rightfully sealed. And he thinks that maybe AIDS isn't so bad after all if it causes him to see the depth of their, of Blaise's, emotions, if it reveals the truth between them.

In the morning, he will wake up and tell Blaise how he feels, and Blaise will say and do nothing except hold Draco tighter to him, and Draco will understand. For now, though, Draco wraps his arms around Blaise and hugs him close to him, quiet love extruding from his newly discovered heart.