Time Spent Waiting

Time Spent Waiting

By regret

There's a light in my eyes but it's too bright to see

And a pain in my heart where you used to be

Guess I was wrong to assume that you were waiting here for me

There's a light in your eyes

Did you leave that light burning for me?

(I have no idea who this is by, but I give them *full* credit for it *and* there's a cookie for anyone who can tell me who *does* sing it!!)

"Draco."

"H-Harry." Shit. Piss. FUCK. How I wish I could have sounded as calm, nonchalant and as un-fucking-flinching as he did. How I wish that his (charming) little chuckle didn't prove that I’d given myself away.

It burns to see him again. It’s been so long... I’ve missed him, though I’m loath to admit it. Probably never will to anyone save myself. And how can he act like this doesn't hurt? Like he doesn't remember what we once were? Like he just doesn't...care... ::sigh:: maybe he doesn't. Maybe he never really did. Maybe I really was *just* a good fuck and a warm body.

It seems to be to me there are just too damn many maybe for comfort there...

Something stills in his eyes as he looks at me. As I war with myself over what I should do now. What to say... should I say anything at all? Trying to still my frantic thoughts I think on the sight he presents. He doesn't look to have changed at all. A pity, I have. I’ve grown grayer. My eyes lost too much of their light when my heart lost him. My hair is in desperate need of a trim and I know it lacks the luster he once admired so. Is this what he sees? *All* he sees?

What I’ve become and none of what I was?

"I’ve missed you, Draco."

And with those simple words my world is undone, shredded and sewn back together without skill or care.

Clearing my throat, "oh?"

I laugh at myself; he puts himself out there and then, only then, am I able to affect my stereotypical indifference. I guess I just needed to know I wasn't alone in my...well...loneliness.

"Are you going to try and tell me you haven't missed me as well?" his tone is haughty as he cocks one perfect eyebrow and again I am drowning in a sea of him.

"Oh, I *have* missed you Harry. No denying that. But it doesn't mean much, considering you meant me to." he looks as though I’ve hit him. Just socked him right in the face. There was a time when I would have much rathered doing so than opting for trademark subtlety. It spreads a warmth through me to realize that I *have* managed to crawl back from the pit of him. Maybe I don't miss him or need him as much as I’ve been trying to convince myself these last years.

Again with the maybes...

"I assure you I don't know what you are talking about." a chuckle. Now look who's getting huffy!

"Please, Harry, do I need to give you a bit of a flashback?" there passes a long pause as he stares resolutely at me. He never was one too budge. "Fine, have it your way. If I remember correctly, and I am *quite* sure that I do, you said, and I quote, 'you'll miss me when I’m gone Malfoy. Hell, that may very well be my sole reason for leaving. To think I loved you'" he gasps and I see that I have hit it right.

Incensed, and oddly grateful that the anger is no longer so impotent, I press on, "I knew right then though that you *never* loved me. Hurting me should have never been so easy. People all say and people all think that *I* am the evil one, the heartless one, the cold, ungiving one. Seems to me they've been looking too long in the wrong direction."

I don't bother to add that it too me two years of living in a *very* dark recess to reach this place. It was in no way instantaneous. Hell, I hadn't even realized I was *here* until just now. I can never admit to him all that it took me to get here. That, after he left, I would give myself to anyone who wanted to take me home. That I would smoke his brand of cigarettes and pray that he might give me a call. I’d lie around in bed all day just staring at the walls. Drugs and sex and sleep. That was all I was for far too long. And I should hate him for it.

But, even now, I love him. I want him. And I remember him as he once was, to me anyway.

Remember what it felt like to have his body against mine, in passion and in sleep. It took weeks (and a fair amount of alcohol) before I could sleep *decently* without him there.

I need to go *now* or I may show too much of myself. Too much of my desire and my despair. If he were to apologize now, if he were to ask me back I would be in his arms before he could request it.

Even now my heart beats for him. For who he once was and the purity he once had. It can forget the pain and the betrayal, but I cannot.

Finally he breaks the heavy silence. But his words are not the ones I want to hear.

"Gods...I...I’m so sorry Draco." he takes a shuddering step towards me before stopping to say, "I was *so* scared. And lost. And all I ever wanted I had, *you*, and I no longer knew what to do. I was afraid of what everyone would say. *And* I was afraid it would cost me you... and so...I fucked it up. Fucked it up royally, left you before you could leave me." he raises a hand to silence a protest I wasn't even going to make and says, "I know you would never have left me, Draco, but that doesn't mean I didn't fear it every second of every day."

"Then you are a fool Harry potter. A fool."

"I know..." if he cries I may have to kill him. "Can you...can you ever forgive me?"

My heart shatters, again, and a rush of sensations flood through me; the airiness of his laugh, the deepness of his moans. The hesitancy of his lips moving against mine that first, frightening time. The feel of his body under me as we made love beneath the winter stars, his birthday gift to me. The ache of him moving inside me, entranced by what we could make real only with our bodies. His breath against my collarbone as he slept, clinging desperately to me, that first night in our very own apartment. The endorphin rush of the first time he told me he loved me and I believed him.

But then comes the twisting, hollow ache and bitter after-taste of his (harsh) parting words. The burn of missing a piece of my soul. The quite despair I felt the first time I let someone else take me. And the slow fire of seeing him again tonight. The spark of hope at his words. The overwhelming need to forgive and forget.

"No."