Don't leave me. Please come home.

Harry holds the parchment in his rough and beaten hands. He's read the six words countless times, wrought in Draco's beautiful, elegant script. The letter has been folded and refolded enough times that it no longer looks crisp, but as weathered as Harry does. He keeps the message folded in the inner pocket of his robes, close to his body. Apart from Draco, he is the only one who knows it has ever been written. They are also the only two who know he has never replied to the letter. He hasn't even spoken to Draco since before this message was made. And while there is no date marked anywhere on the parchment, Harry knows it was sent on the thirteenth of January, two years past.

But what only Harry knows is what it feels like to receive such a letter. Worse yet, he knows how it feels to betray that exact promise he made, and then to have to ignore Draco. He knows, too, even though he committed his crime for all the right reasons, he is no less guilty.

He picks up an old quill and some tattered parchment. For two years he hasn't spoken to nor heard from Draco, but everything is over now. It feels like…time. It was better that way, when he was hidden, where he could prevent others from getting hurt. It was for all the right reasons, wasn't it?

He wasn't able to return to his previous life until six months ago, when everything ended. He'd dealt with everything after, and he had been free. But when the press had asked him, "Will you go home now?", he had imagined the words coming from Draco's mouth and he hadn't been able to stomach it. Harry had returned to the place he'd hidden in, and he'd stayed there.

For all the people Harry saved by being out of the picture, his absence inflicted irrevocably deep wounds on the one closest to him.

He didn't want to leave Draco. That was never his intention, not really, but it had to be done. And every day images of the beautiful youth with the white-blond hair, slender face with skin like moonlit cream swim mercilessly before him. He remembers the ever-amused expression in Draco's face, reflected in eyes the most curious chrome-gray colored eyes Harry has ever seen. He misses those eyes. He misses the quick responses, the dark twinkle in his eye, the sensuous mouth; he misses the feel of Draco enfolded in his arms, the way he bites his bottom lip when he is aroused. And more than anything, he misses the way he felt when they walked together in public, when Draco had finally let him hold his hand. Since then, "home" has been anywhere Draco was.

It is this feeling he remembers as he begins to scrawl on the parchment.

A little after two AM in the center of London, in an expansive apartment with white paint and beautiful dark hardwood floors, a young man with black hair and blue eyes rolls over in a huge downy bed. He sits up at the edge and pulls a pair of tight jeans up a pair of slender legs and hops up once his ass is mostly covered.

Draco watches him as he throws on a black t-shirt and buttons his jeans. The blonde boy is naked, barely covered with a white down comforter, sweat gleaming from his marbled frame. His breathing is calm now and his hair deliciously rumpled, but he says nothing as his lover gathers his effects. This is routine for Draco: men come and then leave once the deed is done. Nobody ever stays, not since…nobody stays. But he doesn't care. Once the room stinks of sex and there's the impression of a man—any man—next to him, he goes to sleep. He goes to work whenever, gets done what he needs to get done, and goes out. Someone comes home with him; they fuck, he leaves, and the process starts itself over again, the same way it's been for almost two years. By now, Draco has probably bedded every fuckable man in this half of Europe at least once—maybe even a few from the other hemisphere have slipped in.

Once Draco hears his front door close, he rolls over and buries his head in the pillow. He doesn't bother to get up and lock the door, even though his apartment is full of expensive and beautiful things. Forty minutes later, he's out, and his sleep is a dreamless one.

He heads to work sometime around one o'clock the next afternoon, smartly dressed and groomed. On his way, he stops downstairs to check the post. A letter from his mother, a cell phone bill, a few invitations, a credit card statement—

He loses his breath.

There, in his hand between other, less significant mail, is a frayed-looking piece of parchment, addressed to him in handwriting he knows too well. He recognizes the little slanted is, the not-quite-closed as, the completely graceless and blunt consonants. He loses track of time momentarily, as flashes come to him from a life he's tried to forget: a scar, a pair of blinding emerald eyes, a gruff laugh, a pair of hands with intertwined fingers.

And he realizes, coming out of his reverie, he doesn't have time for this.

"Katie," he says, addressing the plump older woman who is usually in charge of admitting guests, "can you take this up to my apartment? I've got to run. I'm really late for work." The small woman bumbles forward happily, pleased to be of help to the handsome young man. She accepts the mail and goes on her way, humming cheerfully.

Work finds Draco doing his damnedest to put that god-awful letter out of his mind. It takes no precedence over anything in his day, he knows, but he can barely get anything done. Even his boss notices he is a little jumpy and not quite his smooth, suave self. It takes him so long to get his work done that it is almost eleven by the time he walks his way back to his apartment. He tries to move slowly, coolly, detachedly. But the furious pounding of his heart propels him forward, and it is not ten minutes before he's in the front door, rounding the stairs, and unlocking the door to his apartment.

He is about to pour himself a glass of very fancy wine, and then thinks better of it, moving straight to the strong stuff in a big tumbler, which he downs all too quickly before pouring himself a second.

Katie has left his mail on the kitchen counter, and he plucks the weathered letter from the pile and sits on a beautiful smoky-blue sofa upholstered in Italian silk. He sips slowly now, turning the note over in his hand, not sure if he should open it.

Eventually the maddening heat in his heart and the iron weight in his belly drive him to open it, slowly, carefully.

It is a simple letter, and in its simplicity it destroys Draco. Harry Potter has been uncommitted anywhere for six months, and not a word has come from him. Draco figured he understood why Harry had left in the first place, just after Draco had purchased this one-bedroom apartment: he'd wanted to keep Draco safe. But he'd figured there'd be updates occasionally, just one word here and there. But there had been nothing, and gradually Draco had realized that Harry might never have intended to be with him. The one time Draco had dared to let himself believe in monogamy and allowed himself to fall in love, real love—true love, maybe, if such a thing exists—and the man he'd chosen left him. He'd been so heartbroken he had even managed to get out of bed to send a letter after Harry, sure he would get a least some sort of communication in return.

He had been wrong. Only silence had come.

And six months ago, when everything had finally come to an end, Draco had dared to hope that his love might come back to him, like a faithful boomerang. He imagined opening the door to go to work one day to find the tall youth with the black hair standing there, studying his face with intense green eyes, and then taking Draco in his arms and kissing him with such strength and fury. He'd tear at Draco hungrily, ripping off his own clothes in the process, and fucking him so hard and so passionately Draco wouldn't be able to walk for days. But nothing happened, and eventually he stopped hoping—expecting—that it would. He forced himself to put his most meaningful relationship behind him. He'd pushed it to the back of his mind and gotten rid of everything Harry had ever touched, seen, or given him. He had never even been inside the apartment Draco had bought.

He should have known better than to trust in the hearts of others. Now he does, painful though the lesson had been to learn.

Draco polishes off his drink and puts the cup in the dishwasher before he turns out the light. As he passes the trash can, he lets the message drop from his hand without hesitation, and makes his way to the bedroom. The door closes gently behind him.

Not long after, the letter, poorly positioned in a full trash can, slides onto the floor. It opens face-up, revealing a line of thick black handwriting to a dark and empty room, where no one will take in its message.

I'm coming home.