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kinkfestTitle: The Picture of...
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sumthinlikhuman
Pairing: Albus/Elphias
Rating: M
Warnings: slash, underage, WAFFy, plot heavy
Prompt: Harry Potter, Albus/Elphias: Proper Victorian boys - “I’m not as good as you at keeping secrets.”
Summary: Something shifted between them.
Notes: There...there is a lot of plot in this thing. I think I probably could have cut a lot of the plot, but I was going for a very Victorian romance feel? <—that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
The summer between their fourth and fifth year, something shifted between them. Elphias had spent the summer split between Cork with his paternal grandmother and Martinique with his cousins on his mother’s side, and so Albus had seen little of him, until that last fateful week before school came back into session, when he was spending the time in Diagon Ally to escape the doldrum of Godric’s Hollow.
Elphias, when he arrived in London, was a sight for lonesome eyes, and Albus found that he had never seen his friend look in such good health before: he’d leaned in the summer, gone dark all over and with his freckles standing out brilliantly across the bridge of his nose, gained a head of height (he was still shorter than Albus, but not by quite so much). His smile seemed brighter some how, his eyes more knowing, and Albus found that he could not keep affection out of his own expression.
“You look good—well. You look well, like you haven’t had a bit of hardship this summer,” Elphias exulted upon his arrival, and embraced Albus just as if they hadn’t seen each other in years rather than a few months. It had, Albus thought, felt like years compounded upon years, being apart from his friend, but he had thought it might be only him. “How are your mother and brother? How is Ariana?”
“All as well as can be expected,” Albus assured, and Elphias nodded. It made the wavy-curl of his hair bob a little, and Albus chuckled, bringing his fingers back to touch the ratty tail the tresses had been put back in. There was a bangle hidden in there, all brilliant colors of the rainbow with a small bobble at the end. The touch seemed overly intimate after a moment, and Albus chuckled, pulling away as he watched the blush rise over Elphias’ cheeks.
Elphias regained his composure faster than Albus had ever seen him do so. “Well, if we collect our supplies and what have you, we’ll have until weeks end to simply enjoy each other’s company, now won’t we? I’m in need of new robes, forthwith.”
“You’ve grown taller,” Albus said simply, and Elphias nodded. “Filled out in the shoulders.” The words were silly and pointed and Elphias uttered a nervous titter as Albus saved, “Will you continue with Quidditch? You’ve grown a bit large for the Seeker position.” The words hardly seemed like a grace, and Albus bit his lip to keep from swearing at his own ineptitude.
“Well,” Elphias uttered after a moment, “that’s all up to the Captain, now isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Albus uttered, and let it drop.
They spent that first day together trolling through the streets, collecting their supplies for their fifth year—Elphias confessed as they perused books for things other than school work, that he was worried about the year on the whole and his ability to pass his N.E.W.Ts. Albus consoled him with a smile and told him, “You know I’ll help with anything you haven’t a whit of understanding for.”
“Your generosity is boundless, Al,” Elphias groused, but his eyes sparked with mischief and some affection Albus dared not believe lingered their.
Elphias found a copy of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, and flushed the whole while he purchased it among his school books and the witch behind the counter stared them over speculatively.
In the street, Albus took the book and said, “I don’t know why you enjoy such filth. And from a Squib at that! I haven’t the slightest idea why their stocking such tripe.”
“He’s a superb speaker, Albus,” Elphias complained, taking the book back. “I had the opportunity to listen to him give a derision on the state of affairs in the Kingdom with my uncle at Oxford—Mother heartily disapproved, it was the year we entered Hogwarts you know, but it was quite enlightening—you know the Irish have begun to integrate primary schools with the Muggles, being as most little ones haven’t a whit of what their doing until they get into secondary?”
“I hadn’t,” Albus admitted, then grinned at Elphias, “But the Irish are a bit queer some times, aren’t they?”
“I resent your implications, sir!”
“And I resent your choice in reading material. Allow me to ask, was the dear Mister Wilde surrounded by dandies at this derision?”
Elphias threw up his arms in distaste, rolled his eyes, and leveled a look of such pure annoyance that Albus wondered if it could be distilled for a potion. “I haven’t the slightest idea where you find the inclination and place to malign the man, Albus.”
He turned away with the simple words, and Albus was left flushed and nervous in the street for a moment before he bolted after his friend. Elphias jumped when Albus grabbed him, detouring them toward a nook where he stared him down evenly.
“What then?”
“What did you mean by all that?”
Elphias blustered a little. “Nothing, Albus. Simply that we—and he—are all educated men in a well-versed society and there shouldn’t be such a need to malign one over their choices.” Albus felt his cheeks burn a little with shame and took a self-reproving step away from his friend as Elphias peered at him curiously. “What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
“Albus, you can tell me.”
“Unlikely,” Albus assured, and shook his head. The alley-nook they were in suddenly felt tight and close and too intimate. Albus stepped through it with a nervous chuckle and shook his head. “It’s a bit secretive.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Elphias excused as they strolled back out into the main breadth of the street. “I’m not as good as you at keeping secrets.”
Albus could only hope he was as good at keeping them himself as he thought.
That night, they dined in the Leaky Cauldron, then retired to their room. Elphias loosened his tie and kicked off his shoes, bringing Dorian Gray out of hiding in his trunk and opening it seemingly at random. Albus stood at the window and watched Muggle London winding down in the streets, lights being put up in windows of tenement and townhouses and inns on the street. It was an ineffective way of keeping his mind away from Elphias’ earlier words and the ghost-like reflection of his friend in the window pane.
“It really is a marvelous book, Albus,” Elphias murmured as the silence dragged on. “The imagery Wilde uses—I swear, you can nearly see the characters themselves. It reads like a play show.”
“It’s pure narcissism,” Albus complained without much bite. Elphias laughed, rolling onto his back and holding the book above him at arm’s length.
“It is at that. I would think that would make you enjoy it all the more.”
“I resent that entirely, Elphias,” Albus said, and turned from the window then, replacing the ghost-reflection of his friend with the real thing. Elphias stared at the book a moment longer before he lowered it and looked over at Albus as he approached the space between their beds. “It’s illegal, you know. In the Muggles’ circle, it is illegal to own that book currently.”
“It is most excellent, then,” Elphias said, “that we are not in the Muggle circle. But even then I would risk it.”
“Why?” Albus asked, and wasn’t entirely certain if he had actually uttered the words aloud for a moment, as Elphias lied there, silent and staring at the ceiling as if he had not heard.
“The message of the book is terrible, in a sense,” Elphias said after a moment had passed. “That we will inevitably be faced with our demons, and that is what will destroy us. That the only thing true and real in the world is the terrible nature of everyone, at some point in their lives. But I think he meant it in the best way, and that we all need to be reminded of our own faults at times.”
“You would let yourself be arrested and sentenced to hard labor or worse, were you a Muggle, to remember that you are not perfect?”
Elphias looked up at Albus, and smiled a little. “We cannot all be reminded by our families of our faults, Albus. Some of us need a little public humility.”
They left it alone at that, Elphias retiring soundlessly to sleep and Albus left contemplating his friend’s certainty that public humility and brutal honesty was the proper course of action for certain things. Things had shifted between them, he knew, with that single afternoon and evening together. And as he fell to sleep finally, he resolved that he would attempt a bit of his friend’s remedy for atonic dispositions.
The next day, and the day after, they took to Muggle London together, and prattled on meaninglessly about things that, had anyone been truly listening, would have gotten them more than peculiar looks as they passed. Albus watched his friend when they broke in their litanies: watched how Elphias would tip his hat and smile to any stranger that passed and did the same, how he would kick pebbles about on the road and spook when the horses came too close to him, how he would flush a little about the ears when a particularly lovely young woman would pass in a flurry of petticoats and lace. When they took lunch at a small café, Albus found himself simply watching Elphias, and wondering.
“What did Wilde lecture on at Oxford, Elphias?”
“Oh, I hardly remember now, it’s been four years. I mean, I suppose I remember him speaking on the state of affairs concerning the Muggle-born and the treatment of those and the Squib—sent the hall into a variable uproar. But beyond that, I don’t remember much. It was a bit over my head. I suppose it still would be.”
Albus worried his lip a little in contemplation, and Elphias sighed and rolled his eyes. “You want to know if I noticed anything untoward, don’t you? Well, I don’t remember if I did, and even if I had, it wouldn’t change my ideas on the man a whit.”
“Really, Elphias?”
“Really.”
And they dropped the subject for an entire two days, and then it was nearly the weeks end and they had other things to think of than discussions of author’s bedroom habits and what have you.
The evening before they were set to leave, Albus sat at the window, watching the ghost-reflection of Elphias pack his trunk, and he decided: something had shifted and he knew, now, that there was some chance that Elphias would not leave in a huff and flight if Albus were to voice the dark seated demon that had sat within him for so long.
“Such a long face, Al!” Elphias said as Albus thought of this. He brushed a hand over Albus’ shoulders and smiled at him in the glass. “Sickle for your dark little thoughts?”
“They are dark indeed, my friend,” Albus whispered, and turned a little. He touched Elphias’ hand, where it rested on his shoulder, opened his mouth to speak, and could not find the words to say what he felt he must say.
Elphias went to his knee beside Albus, taking his hand in both of his and saying, “Albus, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I—should not say. I should not, because what if you do not take it so kindly as I hope you will? What if you are not quite as accepting as you and I both seem to think you are?”
“Albus,” Elphias murmured, and lifted Albus’ hand to his lips, pressing a kiss gently to the folded knuckles. He smiled when he drew back. “Whatever it is you have to say, say it, and know I will think nothing different of you.”
When the words wouldn’t come, even at that and even at Elphias’ growing concern showing on his face, Albus did instead of said: he reached out his free hand, cupping his friend’s smooth jaw, and pulled him close to press a kiss to his mouth.
The first passed, and then a second just as shy and tender, and then a third and fourth, and Albus came to notice that Elphias had slipped their hands apart and was touching his own to Albus’ shoulders.
Albus pulled back then, nervous and insecure and terribly frightened that Elphias might object now that it had passed, now that the moment was over. But Elphias’ hands stayed on Albus’ shoulders for a moment as he blinked blindly at the contrast between skin and clothes, and then slowly looked up.
He was smiling, brilliant and shy and boyish, and Albus let out a shuddering sigh at seeing that smile he’d known for the past four years, had thought of in some sense—not always like this, but often enough—in all those years.
“Is that all then? Is that what you couldn’t tell me?”
“I—yes.”
“I am capable enough as you to keep a secret like this, I think,” Elphias murmured after a quiet moment, and it took soft, nimble fingers threading against the back of his neck for Albus to understand just what Elphias was saying.
Albus could not help the smile then, the elation that bubbled within him as he stood and took Elphias into his arms and kissed him again, more deeply than before as Elphias twined his arms around Albus’ neck and drew them toward the beds.
The bed groaned and clattered against the wall, and Albus chuckled as he pulled away from Elphias’ lips; Elphias tittered nervously, running a hand through his foppish hair and tugging at the silly thread-bangle on that single lock. Albus cast a Silence charm over the room—the last thing they needed was room-neighbors complaining of noise—and then smiled at Elphias.
“You aren’t the first,” he blurted stupidly, then bit his lip to keep from swearing. Elphias’ nervous smile showed an ounce of sadness.
“You are,” he whispered, and Albus bent, pulling at Elphias’ shirt with shaking fingers, kissing where his jaw almost touched his ear. “Does it...hurt?”
“Only for a moment,” Albus assured, breathless and terrified. It had hurt, for him, that first time, and he hoped it would not for Elphias, for both their sakes. It took far longer than it should have for their clothing to hit the floor with dull, muted sounds.
Albus sat on the bed, staring down the line of Elphias’ body, worrying his lip as Elphias gasped for breath. He ran his fingers along the sinuous lines of Elphias’ legs, urging them apart to make space for him between. Elphias peered at the ceiling and nonsensically said, “There was an Oxford student in the lecture that day. A Muggle. Wilde kept staring at him the entire time.”
“Is that why—all this?”
Elphias looked from the ceiling to Albus’ torso, and then to Albus’ face, meeting his eyes and furrowing his brows as he said, “I don’t even know.”
Albus touched Elphias then, reveled in the quick inhale of breath Elphias gave as his knees came up and brushed Albus’ sides. Elphias closed his eyes and arched his neck. His freckles stood out brilliantly under the blush that swam on his features.
“Alright?”
“More than,” Elphias assured breathlessly, and Albus kept on, slower than he remembered his first time being—the impatience ate at him, sick and vicious and terrible, trying to urge him on. He ignored the impatience, ignored the need to have his way, bent and kissed Elphias again; that time, Elphias gripped him by the neck, moaned softly, and kissed back as sloppily as any virgin.
When he sank in, finally, Elphias cringed and cried out, and Albus could only shake and shiver and apologize as he kept on, watching the tears that slipped from behind Elphias’ clenched eyelids. As he settled, he rested himself on his elbows and touched Elphias’ cheeks tenderly, whispering his apologies against Elphias’ neck and the dip between his collarbones.
“It’s only for a moment,” Elphias whispered, and Albus nodded, pressing a kiss where the skin was tight over thin, fragile bone. Elphias breathed deeply, gripped Albus desperate-tight, until, finally, after what felt like hours or days or years, he relaxed and opened his eyes, and took one hand from Albus’ shoulder to brace himself against the headboard of the bed.
Albus groaned, pulling out a little and sinking in as slowly as he could. Elphias made a distressed noise, but planted his heels on the mattress and watched Albus, lips parted for quick, uneven breaths broken with quiet, uncertain sounds.
As the rhythm solidified itself, Albus allowed himself to go through things he had thought of, once or twice or more: running his hands over the hard won muscles Elphias had grown over the past three years of Quidditch; touching his lips to places, he learned quickly, elicited soft, tender noises he’d never thought to hear; looking down and seeing Elphias looking back at him, tender and affectionate and loving in his own way, the smile growing in his eyes as his mouth worked without words but with ample sound besides.
He was finished before Elphias, and stared down at where their bodies joined, part terrified and part embarrassed and part disgusted with himself for what they’d just done. He looked up, a quiet apology ready on his lips, just as Elphias moved his hand from the headboard to the juncture of his thighs, and Albus watched, enraptured and captivated by the primal act and by Elphias’ transformed expression as he allowed himself the filthiness of their action together.
His arms quacked and shivered as he pulled away, and Elphias followed as Albus retreated from the bed, grabbed his arm and pulled him back and kissed him, and then said, “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For proving something I’d been debating with myself about for some time now.”
“Which was?” Albus dreaded the answer.
But Elphias smiled, and closed his eyes, and flopped back on the bed, laughing. “What beauty is.”
Albus knew, then, that whatever had shifted between them had been for the better.
Author:
sumthinlikhumanPairing: Albus/Elphias
Rating: M
Warnings: slash, underage, WAFFy, plot heavy
Prompt: Harry Potter, Albus/Elphias: Proper Victorian boys - “I’m not as good as you at keeping secrets.”
Summary: Something shifted between them.
Notes: There...there is a lot of plot in this thing. I think I probably could have cut a lot of the plot, but I was going for a very Victorian romance feel? <—that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
The summer between their fourth and fifth year, something shifted between them. Elphias had spent the summer split between Cork with his paternal grandmother and Martinique with his cousins on his mother’s side, and so Albus had seen little of him, until that last fateful week before school came back into session, when he was spending the time in Diagon Ally to escape the doldrum of Godric’s Hollow.
Elphias, when he arrived in London, was a sight for lonesome eyes, and Albus found that he had never seen his friend look in such good health before: he’d leaned in the summer, gone dark all over and with his freckles standing out brilliantly across the bridge of his nose, gained a head of height (he was still shorter than Albus, but not by quite so much). His smile seemed brighter some how, his eyes more knowing, and Albus found that he could not keep affection out of his own expression.
“You look good—well. You look well, like you haven’t had a bit of hardship this summer,” Elphias exulted upon his arrival, and embraced Albus just as if they hadn’t seen each other in years rather than a few months. It had, Albus thought, felt like years compounded upon years, being apart from his friend, but he had thought it might be only him. “How are your mother and brother? How is Ariana?”
“All as well as can be expected,” Albus assured, and Elphias nodded. It made the wavy-curl of his hair bob a little, and Albus chuckled, bringing his fingers back to touch the ratty tail the tresses had been put back in. There was a bangle hidden in there, all brilliant colors of the rainbow with a small bobble at the end. The touch seemed overly intimate after a moment, and Albus chuckled, pulling away as he watched the blush rise over Elphias’ cheeks.
Elphias regained his composure faster than Albus had ever seen him do so. “Well, if we collect our supplies and what have you, we’ll have until weeks end to simply enjoy each other’s company, now won’t we? I’m in need of new robes, forthwith.”
“You’ve grown taller,” Albus said simply, and Elphias nodded. “Filled out in the shoulders.” The words were silly and pointed and Elphias uttered a nervous titter as Albus saved, “Will you continue with Quidditch? You’ve grown a bit large for the Seeker position.” The words hardly seemed like a grace, and Albus bit his lip to keep from swearing at his own ineptitude.
“Well,” Elphias uttered after a moment, “that’s all up to the Captain, now isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Albus uttered, and let it drop.
They spent that first day together trolling through the streets, collecting their supplies for their fifth year—Elphias confessed as they perused books for things other than school work, that he was worried about the year on the whole and his ability to pass his N.E.W.Ts. Albus consoled him with a smile and told him, “You know I’ll help with anything you haven’t a whit of understanding for.”
“Your generosity is boundless, Al,” Elphias groused, but his eyes sparked with mischief and some affection Albus dared not believe lingered their.
Elphias found a copy of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, and flushed the whole while he purchased it among his school books and the witch behind the counter stared them over speculatively.
In the street, Albus took the book and said, “I don’t know why you enjoy such filth. And from a Squib at that! I haven’t the slightest idea why their stocking such tripe.”
“He’s a superb speaker, Albus,” Elphias complained, taking the book back. “I had the opportunity to listen to him give a derision on the state of affairs in the Kingdom with my uncle at Oxford—Mother heartily disapproved, it was the year we entered Hogwarts you know, but it was quite enlightening—you know the Irish have begun to integrate primary schools with the Muggles, being as most little ones haven’t a whit of what their doing until they get into secondary?”
“I hadn’t,” Albus admitted, then grinned at Elphias, “But the Irish are a bit queer some times, aren’t they?”
“I resent your implications, sir!”
“And I resent your choice in reading material. Allow me to ask, was the dear Mister Wilde surrounded by dandies at this derision?”
Elphias threw up his arms in distaste, rolled his eyes, and leveled a look of such pure annoyance that Albus wondered if it could be distilled for a potion. “I haven’t the slightest idea where you find the inclination and place to malign the man, Albus.”
He turned away with the simple words, and Albus was left flushed and nervous in the street for a moment before he bolted after his friend. Elphias jumped when Albus grabbed him, detouring them toward a nook where he stared him down evenly.
“What then?”
“What did you mean by all that?”
Elphias blustered a little. “Nothing, Albus. Simply that we—and he—are all educated men in a well-versed society and there shouldn’t be such a need to malign one over their choices.” Albus felt his cheeks burn a little with shame and took a self-reproving step away from his friend as Elphias peered at him curiously. “What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
“Albus, you can tell me.”
“Unlikely,” Albus assured, and shook his head. The alley-nook they were in suddenly felt tight and close and too intimate. Albus stepped through it with a nervous chuckle and shook his head. “It’s a bit secretive.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Elphias excused as they strolled back out into the main breadth of the street. “I’m not as good as you at keeping secrets.”
Albus could only hope he was as good at keeping them himself as he thought.
That night, they dined in the Leaky Cauldron, then retired to their room. Elphias loosened his tie and kicked off his shoes, bringing Dorian Gray out of hiding in his trunk and opening it seemingly at random. Albus stood at the window and watched Muggle London winding down in the streets, lights being put up in windows of tenement and townhouses and inns on the street. It was an ineffective way of keeping his mind away from Elphias’ earlier words and the ghost-like reflection of his friend in the window pane.
“It really is a marvelous book, Albus,” Elphias murmured as the silence dragged on. “The imagery Wilde uses—I swear, you can nearly see the characters themselves. It reads like a play show.”
“It’s pure narcissism,” Albus complained without much bite. Elphias laughed, rolling onto his back and holding the book above him at arm’s length.
“It is at that. I would think that would make you enjoy it all the more.”
“I resent that entirely, Elphias,” Albus said, and turned from the window then, replacing the ghost-reflection of his friend with the real thing. Elphias stared at the book a moment longer before he lowered it and looked over at Albus as he approached the space between their beds. “It’s illegal, you know. In the Muggles’ circle, it is illegal to own that book currently.”
“It is most excellent, then,” Elphias said, “that we are not in the Muggle circle. But even then I would risk it.”
“Why?” Albus asked, and wasn’t entirely certain if he had actually uttered the words aloud for a moment, as Elphias lied there, silent and staring at the ceiling as if he had not heard.
“The message of the book is terrible, in a sense,” Elphias said after a moment had passed. “That we will inevitably be faced with our demons, and that is what will destroy us. That the only thing true and real in the world is the terrible nature of everyone, at some point in their lives. But I think he meant it in the best way, and that we all need to be reminded of our own faults at times.”
“You would let yourself be arrested and sentenced to hard labor or worse, were you a Muggle, to remember that you are not perfect?”
Elphias looked up at Albus, and smiled a little. “We cannot all be reminded by our families of our faults, Albus. Some of us need a little public humility.”
They left it alone at that, Elphias retiring soundlessly to sleep and Albus left contemplating his friend’s certainty that public humility and brutal honesty was the proper course of action for certain things. Things had shifted between them, he knew, with that single afternoon and evening together. And as he fell to sleep finally, he resolved that he would attempt a bit of his friend’s remedy for atonic dispositions.
The next day, and the day after, they took to Muggle London together, and prattled on meaninglessly about things that, had anyone been truly listening, would have gotten them more than peculiar looks as they passed. Albus watched his friend when they broke in their litanies: watched how Elphias would tip his hat and smile to any stranger that passed and did the same, how he would kick pebbles about on the road and spook when the horses came too close to him, how he would flush a little about the ears when a particularly lovely young woman would pass in a flurry of petticoats and lace. When they took lunch at a small café, Albus found himself simply watching Elphias, and wondering.
“What did Wilde lecture on at Oxford, Elphias?”
“Oh, I hardly remember now, it’s been four years. I mean, I suppose I remember him speaking on the state of affairs concerning the Muggle-born and the treatment of those and the Squib—sent the hall into a variable uproar. But beyond that, I don’t remember much. It was a bit over my head. I suppose it still would be.”
Albus worried his lip a little in contemplation, and Elphias sighed and rolled his eyes. “You want to know if I noticed anything untoward, don’t you? Well, I don’t remember if I did, and even if I had, it wouldn’t change my ideas on the man a whit.”
“Really, Elphias?”
“Really.”
And they dropped the subject for an entire two days, and then it was nearly the weeks end and they had other things to think of than discussions of author’s bedroom habits and what have you.
The evening before they were set to leave, Albus sat at the window, watching the ghost-reflection of Elphias pack his trunk, and he decided: something had shifted and he knew, now, that there was some chance that Elphias would not leave in a huff and flight if Albus were to voice the dark seated demon that had sat within him for so long.
“Such a long face, Al!” Elphias said as Albus thought of this. He brushed a hand over Albus’ shoulders and smiled at him in the glass. “Sickle for your dark little thoughts?”
“They are dark indeed, my friend,” Albus whispered, and turned a little. He touched Elphias’ hand, where it rested on his shoulder, opened his mouth to speak, and could not find the words to say what he felt he must say.
Elphias went to his knee beside Albus, taking his hand in both of his and saying, “Albus, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I—should not say. I should not, because what if you do not take it so kindly as I hope you will? What if you are not quite as accepting as you and I both seem to think you are?”
“Albus,” Elphias murmured, and lifted Albus’ hand to his lips, pressing a kiss gently to the folded knuckles. He smiled when he drew back. “Whatever it is you have to say, say it, and know I will think nothing different of you.”
When the words wouldn’t come, even at that and even at Elphias’ growing concern showing on his face, Albus did instead of said: he reached out his free hand, cupping his friend’s smooth jaw, and pulled him close to press a kiss to his mouth.
The first passed, and then a second just as shy and tender, and then a third and fourth, and Albus came to notice that Elphias had slipped their hands apart and was touching his own to Albus’ shoulders.
Albus pulled back then, nervous and insecure and terribly frightened that Elphias might object now that it had passed, now that the moment was over. But Elphias’ hands stayed on Albus’ shoulders for a moment as he blinked blindly at the contrast between skin and clothes, and then slowly looked up.
He was smiling, brilliant and shy and boyish, and Albus let out a shuddering sigh at seeing that smile he’d known for the past four years, had thought of in some sense—not always like this, but often enough—in all those years.
“Is that all then? Is that what you couldn’t tell me?”
“I—yes.”
“I am capable enough as you to keep a secret like this, I think,” Elphias murmured after a quiet moment, and it took soft, nimble fingers threading against the back of his neck for Albus to understand just what Elphias was saying.
Albus could not help the smile then, the elation that bubbled within him as he stood and took Elphias into his arms and kissed him again, more deeply than before as Elphias twined his arms around Albus’ neck and drew them toward the beds.
The bed groaned and clattered against the wall, and Albus chuckled as he pulled away from Elphias’ lips; Elphias tittered nervously, running a hand through his foppish hair and tugging at the silly thread-bangle on that single lock. Albus cast a Silence charm over the room—the last thing they needed was room-neighbors complaining of noise—and then smiled at Elphias.
“You aren’t the first,” he blurted stupidly, then bit his lip to keep from swearing. Elphias’ nervous smile showed an ounce of sadness.
“You are,” he whispered, and Albus bent, pulling at Elphias’ shirt with shaking fingers, kissing where his jaw almost touched his ear. “Does it...hurt?”
“Only for a moment,” Albus assured, breathless and terrified. It had hurt, for him, that first time, and he hoped it would not for Elphias, for both their sakes. It took far longer than it should have for their clothing to hit the floor with dull, muted sounds.
Albus sat on the bed, staring down the line of Elphias’ body, worrying his lip as Elphias gasped for breath. He ran his fingers along the sinuous lines of Elphias’ legs, urging them apart to make space for him between. Elphias peered at the ceiling and nonsensically said, “There was an Oxford student in the lecture that day. A Muggle. Wilde kept staring at him the entire time.”
“Is that why—all this?”
Elphias looked from the ceiling to Albus’ torso, and then to Albus’ face, meeting his eyes and furrowing his brows as he said, “I don’t even know.”
Albus touched Elphias then, reveled in the quick inhale of breath Elphias gave as his knees came up and brushed Albus’ sides. Elphias closed his eyes and arched his neck. His freckles stood out brilliantly under the blush that swam on his features.
“Alright?”
“More than,” Elphias assured breathlessly, and Albus kept on, slower than he remembered his first time being—the impatience ate at him, sick and vicious and terrible, trying to urge him on. He ignored the impatience, ignored the need to have his way, bent and kissed Elphias again; that time, Elphias gripped him by the neck, moaned softly, and kissed back as sloppily as any virgin.
When he sank in, finally, Elphias cringed and cried out, and Albus could only shake and shiver and apologize as he kept on, watching the tears that slipped from behind Elphias’ clenched eyelids. As he settled, he rested himself on his elbows and touched Elphias’ cheeks tenderly, whispering his apologies against Elphias’ neck and the dip between his collarbones.
“It’s only for a moment,” Elphias whispered, and Albus nodded, pressing a kiss where the skin was tight over thin, fragile bone. Elphias breathed deeply, gripped Albus desperate-tight, until, finally, after what felt like hours or days or years, he relaxed and opened his eyes, and took one hand from Albus’ shoulder to brace himself against the headboard of the bed.
Albus groaned, pulling out a little and sinking in as slowly as he could. Elphias made a distressed noise, but planted his heels on the mattress and watched Albus, lips parted for quick, uneven breaths broken with quiet, uncertain sounds.
As the rhythm solidified itself, Albus allowed himself to go through things he had thought of, once or twice or more: running his hands over the hard won muscles Elphias had grown over the past three years of Quidditch; touching his lips to places, he learned quickly, elicited soft, tender noises he’d never thought to hear; looking down and seeing Elphias looking back at him, tender and affectionate and loving in his own way, the smile growing in his eyes as his mouth worked without words but with ample sound besides.
He was finished before Elphias, and stared down at where their bodies joined, part terrified and part embarrassed and part disgusted with himself for what they’d just done. He looked up, a quiet apology ready on his lips, just as Elphias moved his hand from the headboard to the juncture of his thighs, and Albus watched, enraptured and captivated by the primal act and by Elphias’ transformed expression as he allowed himself the filthiness of their action together.
His arms quacked and shivered as he pulled away, and Elphias followed as Albus retreated from the bed, grabbed his arm and pulled him back and kissed him, and then said, “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For proving something I’d been debating with myself about for some time now.”
“Which was?” Albus dreaded the answer.
But Elphias smiled, and closed his eyes, and flopped back on the bed, laughing. “What beauty is.”
Albus knew, then, that whatever had shifted between them had been for the better.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-10 08:52 pm (UTC)Lovely story; loved your Elphias. Such a sweet boy~
*♥*
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Date: 2008-06-11 02:31 pm (UTC)Not only you wrote my prompt, you added Wilde. With connections to the wizarding world and everything. :DDD
Seriously, though, I loved this. The boys are so sweet...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 08:11 am (UTC)