Title: The Strange Haze Of Things
Rating: T
Genre: Spiritual
Pairings: Draco/Theo, Draco/Harry, Blaise/OC, Theo/OC
Summary: Draco is introduced to a Muggle drug and finds love within two people he knows he can never have.
Warnings: Slash, mentions of drugs and sex.

I've been looking around the net and I've come across a few stand alones like this and they really amazed me so I wanted to write one. It's a kind of late 'happy birthday'. Anyway, please enjoy!

The Strange Haze Of Things

It was Blaise who introduced them to it. He'd spent most of his summer hanging around some Muggle girl he wanted to sleep with. He didn't like Muggles, he just wanted to spite Draco, who told him he never would. He did, in the end, but that wasn't what was important. The girl, Hannah might have been her name, was into a Muggle inventions 'drugs'. Draco thinks it's stupid; it's just a long white stick, really, but when he, Blaise and Theo settle into the dungeon room, he takes it from Blaise, who had lit up and taken a drag, his eyes lighting up.

The first time he inhales the smoke he chokes. But after a while it becomes easier and breathing the smoke is like breathing air, just so more addicting. He doesn't hallucinate like Blaise said he could, he just gets really relaxed and seriously hungry. They go the kitchens and eat more then their body weight in anything sweet and fattening.

Then they stumble into their dorm and collapse in a heap, sleeping the day away.

Draco isn't sure how it happens but smoking joints starts to become a ritual. They don't do it everyday, just on Friday nights, with stacks of food, the three of them alone in the dungeon room. Draco has never been more relaxed, more in tune. He forgets that his father is in Prison and that his life is surely falling apart and that he has to hate Potter, the one he's sure he's in love with.

He's been friends with Theo for longer then he can remember. Actually, when he thinks back, he can remember. They were six and Draco had made Theo cry so the boy pushed him into the lake. They'd been like brothers ever since. Theo, Draco knows, has an addiction problem. He's an alcoholic and a chocolate addict and Draco knows that soon he'll be so addicted to the joint he'll treat it like an everyday habit. Draco tries to make him stop but Theo is as stubborn as he is fierce and Draco has to give up. He simply makes sure the younger teen doesn't over dose; it's all he can do.

Draco tells them one night, while sailing high on the heavy clouds, that he loves Potter. The other two laugh until they're crying and Draco laughs to, not because it's funny but because laughing is addictive. While he's high he lets his imagination take hold of what he'd want to do with Potter. By the time he wakes the next night his head isn't the only part sore.

Draco loves Theo like a brother, but when he's high and infatuating with Potter, he starts to think that maybe he's been fooled by his love for Theo. Maybe it's more then just brotherly. He tells Theo this when the three decide to venture outside. It's midnight and the sky is a deep, dark inky blanket and they're sitting in the stands. Even though there is a breeze the three of them feel hot and tingly.

Blaise is singing and doing some strange dance with the joint dangling between his fingers. He doesn't pay attention to Draco and Theo, who are laying back on the seats together, their only connection is their laced fingers.

'I think I love you,' Draco says, more to the sky then the other.

Theo makes a content noise. 'Same here.'

'No,' Draco shakes his head and he feels dizzy when the spots of stars swirl. 'I think I love you.'

Theo doesn't say anything but Draco thinks he knows too, because when they finally decided to head inside, Draco and Theo's hands still laced, Theo kisses him. Draco kisses back and he can taste the smoke and the booze and the chocolate and the warmth and he imagines Theo being Potter.

Theo and Draco decide they may just be in love.

It's a strange few months of being in love with Theo. They're only affectionate when they're high but neither minds. Draco feels guilty when he wakes after Friday because he knows that every time he kisses Theo he imagines Potter. Despite all the guilt he never tells Theo.

They're high when they sleep together. Both of them are virgins and they'd probably be stumbling and confused and anxious if it wasn't for the drug. Instead they're smooth and flawless in movement and they laugh and pant and feel so alive. In his mind Draco moans Potter's name, in the morning he suspects it wasn't just in his mind.

They never officially end things. They still kiss but they never sleep together again. Before Draco knows it he's leaning in to kiss Theo who pushes him away. 'I'm dating your cousin,' is all that he says.

Draco feels even more guilt, if it's possible, because he knows his cousin well and it'd kill him if he found out that Draco and Theo slept together. Neither bring it up, it's a silent agreement not to say anything.

Finally Theo decides to stop using. He gives up alcohol too and Blaise goes whinny but Theo doesn't back down, it's the stubbornness again. Draco wishes he could give up but he can't, he needs the drug because Potter is dating the Weaselette.

Every time he sees them he wants to be sick. He knows that Potter never was nor ever will be his but he feels possessive anyway. He tells Theo so while he's high and the younger is simply sitting with him in the stands.

'I know,' Theo says with feeling.

Draco wonders if Theo is still in love with him. He never asks.

Draco drifts through the war on a cloud of smoke and it's at the Graduation ceremony when he's actually completely sober. Theo is married to his cousin and he knows that Theo never told him about them and he's not sure if he's happy about that. The day before the wedding Theo kisses Draco and says, 'I never loved you'. It makes Draco feel better, but not by much.

At the ceremony he sees Potter holding hands with the Weaselette. He feels the sickness and he ignores it while he stands with Theo and Blaise. Theo looks bored and Blaise looks stoned off his face, which he is.

'You should tell Potter,' Theo suggests when McGonagall ends the laborite ceremony and they start hading to the after parties.

Draco raises an eyebrow. 'Why? Would you do it if you were in my position?'

Theo doesn't say anything, but Draco goes for it anyway.

He finds Potter alone, before he leaves for the Weasel's house. Draco is sitting in the stand when Potter walks up. The former Gryffindor never saw him and Draco had just lit a joint, looking up guiltily. Potter apologizes without feeling and turns to leave.

'No,' Draco says quickly, blowing smoke. 'Stay, I wonna talk.'

Potter doesn't believe him at first, but finally gives in. He sits down and frowns as Draco holds the joint. He wants to be sober for the talk. 'Since when did you do weed?' Potter asks.

Draco looks down. 'Blaise.' He looks back into the green eyes and he feels higher then he ever has before. 'I just wanted to say, so you would know, that I've always loved you.'

It sounds strange coming from him sober but it's out there like the thin lines of smoke and the soft swell of breeze. Potter looks skeptical. 'Is this a joke? Are you high?'

'I wish,' Draco mutters. 'But it's the truth.' He shrugs like its no big deal and resists taking a drag.

Potter doesn't say anything for a long time before he leaves. Draco finally takes a drag and relaxes. At least he got it out.

It was a few years later when Draco had a job and his own place away from his childhood home, when he realized his life was headed downhill. He was still doing the Friday ritual with Blaise and he saw his cousin and Theo whenever he could but he had nothing, really. He was an empty shell in an empty life that was filled with hazy smoke.

He realized that the only person he could have been with he'd lost. He'd lost Theo.

He promised to stay the night while he was cousin was out of town. They had a kid now, which still amazed Draco. Theo hated children.

When the house was quiet Draco dragged Theo outside and lit up a joint. He offered to Theo and with a small amount of hesitation Theo took it, dragging deeply. They were sixteen again, smoking outside under the stars while the school slept, unaware. Looking back Draco was amazed at how they'd never been caught.

'Do you love him?' Draco asked, leaning against the side of the house.

Theo was taking a drag and he turned his face away, blowing out a cloud of smoke. 'Yes.'

'Did you love me?'

Theo smiles, his eyes cloudy. 'I love you, Draco, but I was never in love with you.'

'I think I love you.'

'No you don't. You think you do because I'm the only person you've been with and because Potter never loved you. Look at you, Draco, you're still doing this shit and still chasing yourself 'round in circles. You need to grow up out of being sixteen.'

It's all Draco needs for a wake up call. He quits the weed and the Friday rituals and he doesn't call Theo for a while. He has to sort some shit out. He gets a proper relationship, but he isn't in love. Zac is a lot of things but he isn't Theo or Potter. He tries to cut both of them from his life, but it's hard. When he breaks it off with Zac he finds an old stash of weed he'd forgotten about. He's been seven months sober but he doesn't care because life is boring and dull and he doesn't have Theo or Potter.

There he goes, bringing them both up for his problems. He know knows he loves Theo, not like he loves Potter nor how any real, surviving romance should be but it's love and it's strong enough for him to be depressed realizing he was gone from him.

He smokes alone and he lets the smoke make his mind hazy.

He doesn't know why but he turns back up on Theo's doorstep. Lucky for him his cousin isn't around. Theo frowns when he sees his bloodshot eyes.

'I love you,' Draco blurts. 'Not like a brother but not like a soul mate either and if it wasn't for my cousin I'd try and convince you to come with me.'

Theo smiles sadly. 'You're off your face.'

'No, I'm right and I'm determined and I love you.'

Draco wishes it were like a soppy romantic play, that Theo would confess his love too and they'd be together forever. But Draco also knows that if he did, if they were together, it would never last and it would break them both and he knows that Theo loves his cousin. But still, he believes himself to be deserving of a selfish hope.

'Draco, listen to me. We were a mistake, just one big mistake. We aren't in love, so get your head over this. You need to move on.'

Theo slams his door in Draco's face and he finally realizes he has been wondering in another circle and he's come back to begging his best friend for love because he's pathetic.

Draco finally does something selfless. He gives up all thoughts of drugs and Theo and moves to Australia because it's like the opposite of England weather wise. Australia is beautiful and Draco finds himself lost in the new feeling of life. He's lazing around in a Wizarding part of Sydney when he sees Potter.

'Malfoy? What're you doing here?'

Potter looks amazingly breathtaking and Draco is so taken back he thinks, for a second, that he's in another of his weed induced visions. It doesn't take him long to respond. Looking back he wasn't so sure about the details of their exchange but he distinctively remembers asking Potter out and the rest well, he likes to think of it as History.

When he returns to England with Harry he tracks down Theo. Theo has more kids and works at a gallery and Draco teases him for such normality. His most renowned painting makes Draco's throat tighten.

The paint is blurred and hazy but you can see two people, wrapped together, under the inky, endless sky and when he looks very closely he can see the faint image of the joint dangling from the fingertips.

Draco asks if Theo has ever admitted to the painting's subjects or the event. Theo shakes his head. 'I like to think of it all as a dream,' He admits. ''Cause it kind of always was, you know? You and me and that hazy, strange world we made. But now that we're on solid round, back in reality, that world is just a dream.'

It was all just the strange haze of things.

-TBC-

Please review!

With love,

Harpy Wings