Tainted
I am not my father.
Look into my eyes, and tell me that. Tell yourself that. See me when you look at me; see me. When you wake up each morning, pinch yourself until you finally wake from the dream you're living in. You are no longer fifteen, and I am not my father.
You always seem confused about that. You touch me, and tell me that my skin is the wrong texture. You run your hands through my hair, complaining that it is too short. You whisper, each night, that my cock is too slim, my seed too bitter, my mouth too hard beneath your own. Why do I not open for you, you ask. And so I do.
James, you gasp, but it is my skin you bruise when your hands clutch at my hips, my body you bury yourself inside. And I am not my father.
I never speak my thoughts out loud. I thrust up into your mouth, instead, clutch at your hair, so long, so soft, and kiss your forehead when you fall asleep. We have all been wounded in the struggle against the Dark, against Voldemort, and you more badly than most. How can I begrudge you these moments of quasi-peace, after the torment you endured for so long? It is a small enough sacrifice on my part.
It is said that the Dementors can suck all the joy out of a room, out of a person, and can steal all happy memories away. There are times when I wish that second part were true, and that you did not remember my father. Because sometimes I think that your memories of him will bleed into me even as you suck other, more corporeal, parts of me out. Your memories stain the fabric of our relationship, a fabric that should never have been created in the first place. But I lack control, I always have, as Snape told me many times in Potions class, and I couldn't bring myself to send you away when you first came to my bed.
I didn't mean to love you. It happened gradually, nothing at all like the storybook romance of eyes meeting across a room, a rush, a hit, and suddenly, everything's different. No, it was nothing like that. You slipped into my life like you slipped into my body, slow and gentle and sublime, the family I had always longed for, and later, the touch that I hadn't known I craved. The emotions were subtle, and not to be denied. And you, you love a dead man. A dead man I am swiftly turning into.
I wish you would see me for who I am. I hope you never do. Because there was a flash once, a spark of recognition that left you shivering on the floor for hours. It took all my manipulations to coax you back into my bed, even though I was not even certain I wanted you there. Anything, though, was better than seeing that look in your eyes. The frightened one. The one that makes me think you are almost as dead as my father.
I can't say these things out loud. I whisper them into the pillow at night, when you're thrusting into me or lying beside me, asleep. I whisper your name, or scream it as I come, and pretend not to hear my father's name on your lips, traced across my back.
Because after all, as long as we're safe, does it really matter?