A/N: Written for the Song of the Week Mini-Competition #1 at the HPFC forum. I got the song "It Will Rain" by Bruno Mars, and the prompts malevolent, bountyand lovesick. And the pairing was also given. Many thanks to mew (mew-tsubaki) for betareading!

Exhaustive Endgame

'cause it would take a whole lot of medication

to realize what we used to have

we don't have it anymore

He couldn't possibly understand it. He just couldn't.

It couldn't have happened. It wasn't supposed to have happened. If it really had happened, there was something really wrong about this world. Some malevolent twist of the fate, which had decided that he was too happy—but even if that was the case, it wouldn't last.

It was too evil.

And when the sun cast his beams on him, so strong that he had to close his eyes, he knew it was too unreal. If it had happened, he was supposed to be drenched in black, dark raindrops; it was supposed to be thunder and storms, not this bright sunshine.

Because it didn't work like that.

So, it hadn't happened. Roxanne hadn't come up to him and said "It's over," she hadn't had a glint in her eye that told him that she wasn't lying, and he hadn't felt so hurt he had stayed outside all day, unable to move from under that tree at the beach.

And she hadn't gone away after tossing her hair across her shoulder and giving him a final little smile that once had been dazzling but now was etched on the inside of his eyelids like the only thing in the world worth remembering.

He took a deep breath and rose. Everything was as usual. It hadn't happened.

yeah for you I'll try, I'll try, I'll try, I'll try

I'll pick up these broken pieces 'til I'm bleeding

Something kept shouting at her, from the inside of her, and the whole day she had been shutting it out. But now, now when she was alone in the common room in the middle of the night since she couldn't sleep, it wasn't possible not to listen any longer.

Why had she said that to Scorpius? Hadn't she once promised him that she would try and make things work between them? Hadn't she been wanting to let it be as it was (amazing, safe, perfect) between them?

Just because she had gotten afraid of being too dependent and too needy, it didn't mean she had to end it, did it? She should have known or at least guessed that there would be, now only a couple of hours later, an enormous hole in her that she didn't know how to fill. Or what to fill it with.

She had to admit it. She missed him. And she regretted it. And she had broken her promises, so it couldn't be righter if he hated her now.

Because she hated herself.

so keep in mind all the sacrifices I'm makin'

will keep you by my side

He remembered how it had all begun when he chewed on his cereal the following morning. It had been eyes that met and words that were shared, and after that it had been a bit like a hunt—with the exception that there was no victim and no chaser, only two people that ran after the other but didn't want to be caught themselves.

And in the end, both had gotten their bounty: the other.

They had just fit so well, been so perfect together. He adored her with his every power, everything about her. And he had thought she had done the same about him.

He had been wrong. The cereal tasted bitter all of a sudden, and he left his spoon in the bowl.

He smiled after a minute of contemplation. What had he expected, really? They had never had a relationship where they needed each other and they had never been lovesick and there had never been any flowers or sweet little letters or handholding or any of those sorts of things. So why should it then have worked?

If they both were cold and afraid of emotions and of letting their hard façade go, they would never be able to trust each other, nor stay together.

'cause there'll be no sunlight

She had had enough. She couldn't stand it any longer, that feeling of emptiness and hollowness and desperation, that feeling as though she couldn't get enough air—it was overwhelming. Things were about to become right again.

there'll be no clear skies

"How've you been?" Roxanne stood in front of him and her hair was tangled and she didn't look collected or calm or cold. She was a mess, nicely put.

He raised his eyebrows and rose from the chair and raised his voice. (It didn't matter that he had risen so that he would fall so much further if he slipped, now, because rising was his only option if he shouldn't break.) "Fine, thank you. And you?"

She didn't answer him, she only looked into his eyes, and he had never before seen her looking so surprised and so confused. And it had never felt so good, knowing that he had that power over her, that he could make her hurt, just as she had made him hurt.

"Why wouldn't I be fine?" he asked after a moment, and he was so close to smirking he had to grab hold of the table leg not to show it to her. He felt so strong and so powerful, and he wanted her lip to tremble and he wanted her dark eyes to be filled with tears, so wet that they would be blue.

She opened her mouth, and then she closed it again, and she resembled a fish so much he was close to bursting out laughing. Then she opened it again. "Oh, I see. Well." Her eyes were stuck on the ground and for a moment he thought she actually was going to cry, but then she looked at him again with flaming eyes, and she was so angry. "You can't fool me, I can see it."

Scorpius narrowed his eyes as she took a step closer to him. "What can you see?" She took another step towards him, and now he could see the freckles across her nose, those he had marveled over the first time they had kissed, those he had never before noticed.

"That you aren't fine at all, Scor." She was still looking furious and her voice almost broke and then her lips met his. Her lips were so rough, so jarred, and it was as though she wanted to hurt him at the same time that she wanted to ask for forgiveness.

"Sorry." But it was he who whispered that when there was a moment of air. He was sorry, he was so sorry.

And it was all like a bad dream that they had broken up. And now they had awoken, and everything was good, and they were clutching onto reality, on the other so hard, as though it was the only thing that could save them from not being drawn back down in the darkness and the nightmares.

"What were we thinking?" Roxanne said later as her lips moved up to Scorpius' ear. He grabbed her around her wrists and they were so lucky that the common room was abandoned.

"I don't know. But let's never do something like that again, deal?" Scorpius answered and held her tightly.

They sat like that for a while, Roxanne to the left of him, Scorpius not letting go of her wrists, and her head resting against his shoulder, slumped there like an exhausted parrot.

The fire in front of them had almost burned out, the ashes were going up in wisps every few seconds, but there was almost no glow, no energy whatsoever left.

It was exhausting not being with her, Scorpius thought and he closed his eyes.

oh don't just say goodbye

don't just say goodbye