Chapter Text
“Oof,” Ron grunted as Draco planted his arse into Ron’s lap without warning, darting his hands out to snatch Draco’s waist before he toppled over. Draco’s tantalizing heat warmed Ron’s hands, radiating through his dress shirt and making him bemoan his determination to remain respectful as he slid his hands down to the sides of his legs. But temptation only followed him as the soft, yet prickly texture of the brown corduroy trousers teased him with permissible excuses for stroking Draco’s thigh. Who could deny him if he claimed to have gotten entertained by the interesting fabric? Valid excuse or not, he could not risk distraction. He did not want to fail to catch Draco if he turned out drunker than he appeared.
He didn’t use to hold onto Draco when he dropped down on Ron like he was a chair, but the first time that Draco had gotten too tipsy to land right, tumbling off onto the floor, Ron changed his habits. Never again did he want to live through Draco begging him to inspect his trousers for dirt. Draco presenting his arse to him and pleading he brush off everything with his hands since the flashing lights of the club made things difficult to see had almost killed him the first time.
As much as he’d love to have permission to get his eye full of Draco’s pert arse, hands exploring the shape of it like a sculptor learning the movement of clay, being amongst their laughing friends when he did wasn’t worth repeating.
Wiggling, Draco scooched further into Ron’s lap and flung his legs over the arm of the thick, sage armchair Ron sat in to face Neville on the neighboring loveseat – not for a second did he pause his conversation. Rarely did Draco sit with the intention to talk to Ron, landing on him already mid-conversation or beginning one with Ron’s neighbor.
But when that conversation died out and Draco had made himself comfortable, leaning against Ron’s chest, sometimes petting the short hairs on the back of Ron’s head or twirling paths over Ron’s forearm, then did he get Draco’s undivided attention. Exclusive, magnetizing attention that could convince Ron to pull his heart out of his chest if Draco asked for it.
Over a year of his lap getting filled with Draco on a semi-frequent basis had yet to desensitize him, leaving him a little dazed and confused when Draco put him in center stage. No matter Draco’s state, his eyes roamed over Ron’s face, his freckles tingling as Draco took inventory of each one. As he ensured they were all accounted for, he’d ask Ron how he was in a low voice. That voice could collapse the walls of the room around them, poofing the people away like the flame of a blown-out candle. In those moments, Ron struggled to remember that he had no right to lean in to taste the sweetness on Draco’s lips.
They were just friends.
And friends didn’t go planting unasked-for kisses on each other just because they had an unruly crush going haywire under their skin.
It helped his control if he gave into the milder urges when Draco hadn’t become aware of his human furniture yet. While Draco was still entrenched in flora conservation, the latest line of designer footwear, human rights, or whatever topic that made Ron question how many opinionated interests one person could have, Ron could let go a wee bit. Not so much to close his eyes to enjoy it. Not after the time he opened his eyes to find Harry giving him a knowing raised brow, complete with a ragging to compete with Mum for Most Exhausting when Harry’d gotten Ron by himself later that night.
But still, in the peace of being ignored, he could take a deep breath and inhale Draco’s green apple shampoo blending with his cardamom cologne, teasing his mind with memories.
Harry’s twenty-fifth birthday packed the bar with the noise and sweat of too many people. The plan had only included about fifteen of them taking up the back section of this bar, but it had gotten leaked that Harry Potter was celebrating his birthday and within an hour people packed themselves in like sardines to join the party. If the twins hadn’t already gotten Harry sloshed, they’d have relocated the second Harry realized the influx of bargoers was all for him.
But Harry had more beer and whiskey than water in his blood and only cared about making his friends dance to the most outrageous muggle songs on Seamus’ music player he’d rigged to the bar’s speakers. Ron had been twisting, gyrating, and waving his arms around under Harry’s instruction for long enough to sober up – no one hand-delivered shots to him on the dance floor. Sobriety told him two things. One: he needed liquids, preferably a large glass of water and a larger mug of beer. Two: he needed to sit down before his feet popped off and went home without him.
Getting his drinks from the bar was an easy enough feat because despite not being worthy of hand-delivered drinks, he still was the Savior’s best friend, so the bartender hurried to abandon the rest of the masses to get his order. However, finding a seat seemed damn impossible. He’d take anything, even if it was leagues away from everyone else. But the bodies weaving around tables like salmon around river rocks only gave him glimpses of taken seat after taken seat. He’d managed to finish his glass of water before he’d spotted it, the holy grail of an open seat.
It was even with his friends. How much better could it get?
Ron weaved through the crowd with determination, not caring if he knocked into others and made them ping-pong against each other. That seat was his.
The moment his arse hit the chair, he sighed in unison with the wheeze of the foam padding through the fire-red cracked upholstery. His tired feet sang with joy for no longer holding him up and if he was lucky, by the time he finished his beer they’d be ready to either rejoin the party or carry Harry home. Taking a welcomed sip of his beer, Ron rolled and stretched the burn out of his ankles and settled in.
In his hyperfocus on securing and enjoying his seat, Ron hadn’t noticed Draco standing beside the chair hugging his friends, who were calling it a night.
That oversight did not go unrectified as Draco screeched, “Hey, that’s my seat!” as soon as he turned around, piercing his outrage through the blasting music. If he could produce flames, there’d at least be smoke pluming out of Draco’s nostrils.
“Not anymore,” Ron said, sinking deeper into the spot and grinning when Draco’s nose flared wider.
“I want my seat back. Go get another.” As Draco shooed Ron flashes of light bounced every which way from the reflections of the bar lights off the silver rings and gems decorating his slender fingers. Distracting, for sure, but in no way did Draco’s disco ball hands encourage him to move. Though they did encourage an urge to pop each individual finger into his mouth and glide the rings off with his lips and tongue. And it hadn’t even been that long since he last got laid.
Ron wiped the foam of another swig of beer off his upper lip onto his forearm and shook his head. “There isn’t any. Take a turn standing. I’ll get up as soon as my beer is done.”
“I don’t take turns,” Draco scoffed. “Nor am I patient enough to wait an indeterminate amount of time just to get back what was mine to begin with.”
Smirking, Ron winked and offered, “You’re welcome to share it with me.”
He hadn’t actually meant it. He figured Draco would sneer and say something about not sharing. And he was pretty sure that was what Draco had been about to do, except he closed his big mouth, gave a disgruntled horse huff, and then plopped right down in Ron’s lap.
As Ron recovered from sloshing his drink in surprise, Draco snipped, “Didn’t think I’d call your bluff, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Ron admitted as he tried to maneuver Draco so he could still reach the table to set down his drink.
Fighting against Ron’s manhandling, Draco said, “I’ll get off you if you give me back my chair.” Regardless of Draco’s effort, Ron hiked Draco into a better position with a quick thrust timed with a one-armed pull.
“Nah, I’d rather sit.” He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the thunderous clouds of disgruntlement rolling off Draco at his indifference. But really, there were worse things in the world than a pretty bloke sitting in his lap – such as standing on his tired feet or giving in to Draco.
When Blaise, sitting across the table, had asked for Draco’s opinion on Gringotts' new interior design, Draco shrugged his displeasure off like last season’s fur coat, turning his attention away from Ron. His dismissiveness turned Ron into furniture, and he couldn’t say he minded. With Draco so close, he discovered all these little delights he’d never had a chance to notice before.
Like the pale freckles over the bridge of his nose, a crescent birthmark behind his left ear, and that he smelled fantastic. There were too many sensations battering at Ron’s brain in the overcrowded bar to pick out what he smelled of, but fuck, was it nice.
In the moment, it hadn’t occurred to him that taunting Draco into sitting on his lap once would open the door for Draco to sit on him every day forward, even when other chairs existed. But with Draco’s competitive spirit to win any challenge – including ones his opponents had no idea they were participating in – Ron should’ve recognized he’d thrown down a gauntlet that Draco would pick up and run away with until it’d simply become a habit.
So much of a habit, the number of chairs needed dropped down by one as everyone stopped expecting Draco to sit anywhere else. They received questioning looks the next time Draco plopped in his lap, but Ron’s surprise and Draco’s confidence left very room for suspicion, especially when he sneered, “Weaselby rudely stole my chair and he’s yet to apologize.”
And he had no intention whatsoever of doing so.
Draco shifted, changing the hands holding his perspiring glass of strawberry-smelling pink drink to lay his arm behind Ron’s neck, fingers seeking out his overgrown hair as he nodded along to Neville’s opinion. Ron fought back a full-body shiver from the soft touch of the pads of Draco’s fingers, cold from his glass, grazing little temperature shocks against Ron’s hot neck. When a small quiver broke free, the corner of Draco’s pink lips quirked up with a poorly suppressed smile that left little crinkles in the corner of his eye. Draco’s little amusement at pestering Ron breaking through his focus on Neville did more to deepen the pressure on Ron’s sternum than the weight of him shifting in closer.
The bigger kick-in-the-arse consequence of opening the door for Draco to invade his space on the regular was how the intimacy had crumbled the wall he’d been building around his burgeoning attraction for Draco.
It happened sometime after he and Hermione had split.
Without his loyalty to her blinding him from noticing the people around him, Draco’s beauty walloped him in the face with the force of a pillow swung with unexpected intensity. Draco had been around for years; first, as a determined pest hovering around Harry to make amends as they rebuilt Hogwarts together then as Harry’s platonic date when he didn’t want to feel like a third wheel with Ron and Hermione, and finally as Harry’s business partner when a drunken proposition turned into a sober reality. They’d all been in rough shape back then, but the years of a life worth living had turned Draco from a walking ghost to an ethereal being.
While still spindlier than most – genetics played a hard hand in that – the gauntness had plumped out, covering his bones in lithe muscles. A light flush often colored his cheeks, so much quicker to delight than in their younger years. He’d coat his long blonde lashes with mascara like the girls did, making his mercury eyes more mesmerizing than was fair for Ron’s tucked-away bisexuality. The rosy hue of his lips made Ron wonder if he used makeup to make them more alluring too except, in all of his fascination with his mouth, Ron never caught a crack or smear to prove the color unnatural. Even when they stretched wide in a smile over his pristine teeth or pressed into a wine glass taking demure sips.
The most startling difference from the past was the “cursed curls of his mother’s side” as Draco called them, no longer poisoned straight with powerful potions. Despite being kept under immaculate control to ensure he could continue ragging on Harry for his bird’s nest, they shone with audacious life. Paired with Draco’s considerable skill in blending muggle and magical fashion trends to find what best highlighted his features, Ron rediscovered the all-encompassing sensation of infatuation anew.
And the first time he’d noticed that his heart sped up in Draco’s proximity and his lips pulled up into a smile just because Draco smiled, Ron had tried his best to block it off from growing deeper. He refused to fall for his best mate’s business partner, a path with flashing warning signs for disaster ahead.
He found bricks for his mental wall without trouble. For fuck’s sake, Draco kept up his image as a prat with a dedication to the craft. And with him came Pansy way more often than Ron already dealt with through Gin and nothing gave him a headache faster than Pansy’s shrill voice. Ron became a semi-frequent visitor of Wicked Wands, the gay wizarding club on Horizon Alley, and learned how to hook up with dudes to get it out of his system. Then he’d been tasked with a whole new batch of muggle-born wix needing grants and placement into summer tutoring, giving him the chance to solidify his wall by keeping him away for a long while.
And just like that, he’d forgotten he had once gotten weak in the knees for Draco’s smile.
“Hey,” Draco said, snapping Ron back into the room from his wandering thoughts. With Neville turning to Hannah, it must be Ron’s center of attention time.
“Hey,” Ron echoed, fighting his lashes from fluttering as Draco’s short, pristine nails grazed against his scalp.
The electrifying touch turned teasing when Draco pinched a chunk of hair and tugged as he said, “Finally growing out your hair now, are we?”
With a scoff, Ron said, “You wish. My barber had a baby, and I haven’t been able to get in with anyone else.”
“All I’m saying is that Bill’s the hottest Weasley, but you’d beat him out with long hair too,” Draco said, the fullness of his teasing grin pushing the apples of his cheeks into his eyes.
Ron rolled his eyes to cover up the fluttering spasms in his chest. “I’d rather be second best and not have it getting in my face at work.”
Draco sighed with the dramatization Ron knew to expect from him being told no to anything, and he twisted to collapse his back against Ron, head dropped back onto Ron’s shoulder. “Lame,” Draco whined. “I’m just trying to get you laid, you know. Salazar, how long has it been?”
A long time.
He’d gone to the club about a week before they’d all decided to pull an all-nighter after a beach party to see the sunrise where Ron ended up holding Draco as he slept. With a beach full of open sand chairs and Adirondacks, while complaining that Ron was sitting on a towel in the sand, Draco had still curled up into Ron’s lap. He’d fallen asleep within minutes, unbothered by their boisterous friends still goofing around. Draco’s breath tickling the spattering of red-wiry hairs on Ron’s chest exposed by his open button-up and his sleepy fingers curled around the towel Ron had draped over him to hold off the cool night air, had laid bare the reality that Ron had fallen hard for him. And he has had no desire to go back to the club since.
“How long has it been for you?” Ron evaded.
Scoffing, Draco waved his hand like he could fan away the question like an odor. “Boring! I have no plans of touching a stranger with unknown cleaning habits anytime soon and celibacy has never been a bother to me. But your friends have loose lips when they’re drunk; I know you and Hermione used to go at it like bunnies, and then you took your freedom and made the most of it. Lately, their lips have been whispering over how worried they are about how you haven’t gone out in ages. They think you’re letting yourself get lost in your job.”
“First off, my friends need to mind their damn business. Secondly, if either Harry or Hermione said that they’re fucking hypocrites,” Ron muttered as Draco picked up Ron’s hand and began tracing the lines in his palm; the grazing touch tingled all the way up to the base of his skull, taking him to the cliff’s edge of a mighty shiver and holding him there. “Lastly, I’m done with futureless shags.”
More accurately, he was done with the empty feeling of fucking with another person on his mind. It was the same as the bland, unsatisfying taste of any food when he had a specific craving. Even the most skillful sex or the most flavorful food would never compare to what he yearned for.
Draco whispered, “Good,” almost slipped past his notice as Draco overshadowed it by saying louder, “Long hair would still help you find your future spouse.”
Dropping his head back onto the headrest, Ron groaned for ages, only cutting it off when Draco’s snickering giggles bloomed too much happiness in his chest to maintain grievance.
He was a goner, and there was nothing he could do about it.