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"For fucks sake, Potter, this is more than unbecoming!", Draco exclaimed, whilst trying to find an inch of clean cloth to wipe his hands on. "It's passed mad, skirted around ludicrous, danced twirly circles with preposterous, headed straight through farcical towards.."
"Malfoy", Harry interrupted, "remember to breathe. Through your nose, take a deep one." He couldn't help poking the already riled dragon a bit more though. "Are you trying to say that it's ridiculous? Perhaps even laughable?"
"You're ridiculous and laughable", was Draco's peevish retort, having taken as many as two deep breaths in the time Harry was speaking. "Yet you don't see me cackling, do you?", he continued menacingly.
"I'm not the one reciting a thesaurus. I also seem to remember you calling me quite a few other things last night, of a very different variety, and none of them were a synonym for absurd." Harry leered at Draco, before shifting his mouth into a devious smirk. "Are you just trying to hide the fact that you're feeling rather sheepish at the moment?"
Draco threw him an incredulous look, which quickly changed into his "if-looks-could-kill-cause-I-certainly-can't"-glare™.
"Just a tad?", Harry continued. "A fluffy, woolly, very muddy wee bit?" He once again faced the line of eerily staring, evil-looking sheep blocking their path. "You're the one who insisted on a nature walk by the pastures, even though it's been pissing down for the past five days. Wandless, might I add."
"I am leaving you and not taking this relationship with me, Potter. You can stay here with the sheep."
"I love ewe, too", was Harry's deadpan reply. "Not my fault you stumbled and fell in the clag, yelling bloody murder and attracting the attention of the shaggy, sodden masses while you were at it."
"I'm going to strangle you with my scarf." Which was highly unlikely, seeing as the scarf was the only item which had come away from his fall fairly unscathed; enough so that Draco wasn't prone to put his grimy hands on it, if nothing else.
"Ah, yes. Death by cashmere. The only proper way to go, woolly."
"You're just full of puns, aren't you? Never mind my time of need here. Fine, I'll just strangle myself then, shall I?"
"Kinky. If I'd known you were into that sort of thing..", Harry said slowly, wearing what appeared to be a pensive look if one were to believe only what their eyes were seeing. Draco had learned long ago not to where Harry was concerned.
"Don't you even go there, Potter. Get your head out of the gutter, keep it out of there and your eyes on the hoggerels."
"Very dirty you are, indeed", Harry continued as if Draco hadn't spoken. "Positively filthy", followed by a ridiculously lascivious wink in his partner's direction, in turn followed by an equally lascivious up and down visual scan of Draco's now entirely mud-caked body.
"Oh, fuck you. Fuck you very much, Harry. Because you certainly aren't going to be fucking me for the foreseeable future. As soon as we escape these.. these bleating, bastard pelt clouds, I'm going home and having a bath. Then I'm going to bed. By myself. You", Draco said, pointing an accusatory finger at Harry, "you're sleeping on the sofa. For at least a fortnight."
"Mm, I'll just have to cosy up to the sheepskin rug then, won't I? All warm and dry and soft, unlike our line of opposition here", adding "and clean" after a few seconds of contemplative silence.
"Harry."
The pleading, weary smallness of Draco's voice snapped Harry out of his thoughts and the 'banter-but-not-really-banter-or-is-it?' atmosphere. Looking at Draco, it was quite obvious that he wasn't only miserable, but also freezing.
"Oh, love, come here. I'm sorry. Here, let me at least cast a warming charm for you."
"As long as you don't try your hand at any wandless cleaning, last time was a disaster. I really don't need the added humiliation of having to walk home in a state of déshabillé, as well. I'm mortified enough as is, being utterly begrimed, thank you" Draco replied, whilst sidling up to Harry.
Having successfully warmed Draco up, drying the mud on his clothes into cakey flakes in the process, Harry once again turned his attention back to the obstacle at hand.
"They're just a horde of sheep, Draco. We're two fully grown wizards who've faced a lot more evil and tricky adversaries with fewer tools in our box. What are we even doing still standing here?"
"A flock."
At Harry's questioning look, Draco rolled his eyes and elaborated. "A horde of sheep is called a flock."
Harry rolled his eyes right back. "Thanks for that lesson in mammal group terminology, very much the most relevant thing to be focusing on at the moment."
"Well, I'd rather focus on that, than the.." Draco shot a nervous glance at the now placidly chewing grazers assembled ahead of them. Some of which had, thankfully, started to lose interest in the two bipedal interlopers in favour of mowing the grasses.
"The only way out is through, or so I've read."
"I didn't know you'd read Robert Frost", Draco looked almost impressed, which Harry immediately undid by, once again, shooting Draco a questioning look.
"Who?"
"Honestly, Potter, I ought to have known. You are such a plebeian when it comes to literature. Robert Frost was a highly awarded American poet, 'the only way out is through' is from one of his poems."
"Once again, Draco, really focusing on the important bits here. And since when do you consider American poetry non-pleb?" Harry said, giving Draco an eyebrow-raised, meaningful glance. Switching to a mischievous look, Harry continued. "If you're not willing to plough through the livestock, we'll just have to take the one less travelled by then, I guess."
"Please don't mention ploughing and livestock in the same sentence ever again, thank you kindly", Draco winced, adding "especially when we're this close to Wales" under his breath. "And you do know who Frost is then, you bastard."
Deciding to let dead poets lie, Harry instead looked to the mossy, slippery stone hurdle to the left of them. "Which obstacle course is more to your liking, through the sheep or over the wall?"
- - -
Once back home in their cottage, having eventually managed to convince Draco that neither of their destinies were demise by fleece, Harry earned his way off the couch by drawing Draco a lavish lavender bath and making his favourite loose leaf peppermint tea. He earned his way back into bed, after drying Draco off with the fluffiest warm towel he could conjure, by pulling Draco there with him to show exactly how much he appreciated all that clean, soft skin.