The theme this round was OTP, which is Lucissa for me. This was great until I saw that captains had to write about at least one member keeping a secret from the other. sigh This is the closest I will come to sinking this ship.
NOTE: If you are underage, please do not read this fic. I know there is no way of enforcing this, but I would appreciate it if you were to respect my wishes. As a rule of thumb, if you cannot purchase Firewhiskey, you probably should not be reading this. No under-age wizards allowed, please.
TRIGGER WARNING: This piece includes talk and an account of sexual assault.
Thanks to my team members, Lokilette, The Lady Arturia, and Nightmare Prince for Beta'ing this.
Word count: 2,871
She runs a hand up his chest, pressing herself closer, rising to her toes to bring her lips so tantalizingly close to his. She can feel his breath on her mouth, hot puffs of air on every exhale, but they do not touch.
"Make love to me," she whispers, trembling now in anticipation. She yearns for his gentle kiss, his tender caress, his soft words. She wants to be enveloped in his love, to be held in his arms as tightly and securely as she'll hold him between her legs. A smile tugs at her lips as she breathes him in, knowing soon she'll smell like that, smell like him, another mark of her status as his wife.
She is his; she has always been his.
But he's stepping away from her, leaving her arms empty and her cunt aching and her heart breaking. Her body runs cold at his departure, his rejection, and she opens her eyes in time to see his back moving away from her, towards the door, shoulder slumped and head hanging low. She chokes back a cry, wounded, because he's never turned away from her before, never turned away from her like that: without a word, without a kiss, without any acknowledgment of what they share.
Panic is rising now. Does he know? Could he suspect? She thought she had been hiding it well, as preoccupied as she's been with everything and anything else. But you can't hide scars; you can't hide filth; you can't hide dirty, ugly, impure unfaithfulness. It's been an up-hill battle from the start.
-oOo-
She's coming up from the cellar, locking the door firmly behind her, when she turns and he's there. He's standing before her, far too close, looming over her with a leering smile. She does not return it. He should be upstairs, talking with the others, talking with her son, about dangerous schemes and heinous things. She lifts her head, eyes cold, and sidesteps to the left. But he catches her wrist, gripping it tightly, jerking her to a halt.
Heart pounds. Eyes shift up the corridor. Fingers twitch for wand.
Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.
He drags one grubby finger down her cheek, and she shudders.
"Poor little Cissy. Do you get cold at night, all alone in that big bed?"
Hands on his chest. Pushing him away.
"Shouldn't you be upstairs, Rowle?"
She inches up the corridor, closer to the exit. She must get out.
"Ah, but you need me more. Let me warm you up, darling."
Hand rises up. Cracks against his cheek. Shoves him away.
"Don't you touch me!"
The tension grows, and he's glowering at her, and she's all too aware of how he towers over her, how alone they are, how defenseless she is. She bolts, up the corridor, up to freedom, up to safety. There's but one thought screaming in her mind, one thought controlling her motions.
Get. Out. Now.
Arm caught. Pulled back. Pinned against wall.
No, no, no!
"You always were a frigid bitch, Cissa."
Whisper of robes falling. Hiss of zipper. Growl in her ear.
No, no, no, no, no!
-oOo-
"Do I disgust you?" she chokes out, not because she wants to know, but because she has to, because as much as it will tear her apart, she cannot accept his abandonment without hearing him say it aloud. If it is what he wants, she'll lay it down, all twenty years, right there at his feet.
He pauses by the door, turns his head, but doesn't look at her, doesn't meet her eyes.
"You could never disgust me," he says in a soft voice, a tender voice, a gentle voice. It's thick with emotion. Tears are pricking his eyes and running down her cheeks, reflections of each other even when they cannot put to words what is crippling them. She casts her hands out, lets them fall, helplessly, because she feels like she has all the pieces, that they're all there.
But she can't. Make. Them. Fit.
"Lucius."
He's already slipping through the door, closing it quietly behind him.
She lowers herself onto the chair, staring at their bed, pillows plump and duvet tucked pristinely under the mattress. It's their marriage bed, where she learned the magic of a man's touch; where her heart stained the sheets red as it surrendered itself to another; where his very soul had slipped out through his mouth to offer itself to her; where he had told her he was in love with her, in love with her, always so completely in love with her.
She cries on that chair, dropping her head into her arms on the vanity. She cries until night creeps in and exhaustion takes over and sleep overpowers her.
She will not spend another night in a cold, empty bed.
-oOo-
It's the breach of her innermost self that shatters her world, like steel through heart or a shout in a quiet night…a shout going unheard, unanswered…One sharp jolt that sends a searing, scorching pain through her whole body down to her very soul until, suddenly…
She's drifting. She's there and not there all at once. She smells his arousal, she feels his weight, and she knows this is happening, but she feels nothing.
His breath: hot puffs on her ear – makes her skin prickle.
His fingers: groping and pulling at her breasts – makes her stomach lurch.
His tongue: scraping a path up her neck – makes her throat clench.
And all the while, the threat of his wand presses into her back, and her arm is twisted and pinned, holding her in place, so that his pelvis can snap back and forth without resistance…back and forth, back and forth, forth…forth…forth…
He dips his nose into her hair, his mouth lingering at her ear, and she cringes further into the cold, cold wall.
"You're so beautiful, Cissa."
-oOo-
But she doesn't want to be. Not anymore. She wants to mar herself, to gouge the prettiness right out, to scrape and scratch until she's got all that sickly beauty off of her. She wants to cut an incision on her wrist and drain it all out, or else fill herself with the ugliness that's found at the bottom of a bottle so that maybe, maybe, she'll stop feeling so dirty, so tarnished, so guilty.
One hand is running up her thigh, and she presses her face into the pillow, biting back a scream. His lips are at her throat, dry and chapped, yet tender; his fingers are on her stomach, dry and coarse, yet gentle. She focuses on her breathing – in, out, then in, out – trying to stay here, now, with him, in this moment.
But as she feels the cold air bite at her exposed skin and his chest press against her back and his erection against her buttocks, she slips and recoils. She doesn't smell Lucius – musky yet sweet and altogether hers – but him, with his strong, putrid stench of carcasses and betrayal and dried blood and barbarism.
-oOo-
She cries out, and all her hope and fight go fluttering out in that one sound, that one breath. Her dignity has shattered, smashed against the cellar wall in a single fit of raging lust. When he's done, he'll walk out unaffected and satisfied with his claim to dominance, crushing the remaining pieces of her underfoot. She's like broken glass or shattered crystal, pearls ripped from throat and left scattered on the floor…
"You like that, don't you? Like how I fuck you? Yeah, you know you wanted it."
Face against wall. Eyes closed. Fists clenched tight. Elbows pressed in. Let it end. Please, please, let it end.
Let. It. End.
And in the softest of voices, barely more than a half-hearted plea, "You're hurting me."
-oOo-
He's off her in seconds.
Some part of her sighs with relief, breathes freely once more, because this is Lucius – Lucius, who loves her; Lucius, who respects her; Lucius, who never took or stole anything from her, who instead accepted gifts she offered with all the humble dignity of a gentleman.
But her mind has not caught up.
"I'm sorry! I thought – I assumed – I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"
He stops. Clears his throat.
She doesn't need to see his face to know that he is flushing with humiliation, that he's burning with shame for an offense he thinks he has committed. Somewhere in her, something cries for him and longs to reassure him that it isn't his fault, never his fault. How can it be, when she's the one who is broken, tainted, tarnished, dirty, used? He has given her everything, done right by her, always, and she cannot even be a proper wife, can only lie there on their bed, quivering and clutching at the sheets.
But her mind is still reeling from the intrusive memories, still remembers the last time she was pressed onto her stomach…the last time a man was on her back…
"Forgive me," he says in a tight voice. "I over-stepped myself."
The bed creaks. He rises. He doesn't look at her, and she doesn't look at him, averting the gazes to avoid seeing their shame reflected in the other's face. She swallows, hard, staring at the crocheted-frills of the pillow by her face, counting the threads of yarn until her vision blurs.
The door opens. Clicks shut. Then she finally, finally, turns herself onto her side, legs curling up and elbows tucking in, squeezing her eyes shut as she chokes on a sob.
-oOo-
He shoves her roughly, and her cheek scrapes against the wall. His hand is clawing at her skirts, hiking it up higher, higher, higher, so she feels the air swirl around her legs, the buckle of his belt slapping against the back of her knee, the tell-tale sign of how utterly exposed she is. Pulls back. Dips. Thrusts forward again.
"You'd enjoy it if you just relaxed."
He is the chisel and mallet, and she is just the diamond underneath, trembling under the pressure, wondering if she will be cut in two or simply shatter into a million pieces.
-oOo-
She stands on the balcony of their bedroom, gazing out at the grounds of her Manor. Her peahens have all sought shelter from the torrential rain in their coup, but her prized peacock stands erect at his place atop the hedge. His white feathers shine through the gloom in all their glory, proud to the last, looking more like an angelic apparition than bird. The juxtaposition of his pride and her shame and the overarching despair that has gripped her beloved little paradise is so ironic, she could laugh.
She could laugh.
But she doesn't.
The door opens behind her, and she tilts her head to see a figure ease it shut once more. Lucius comes to stand beside her, taking care to approach her at an angle so that he is in her field of vision at all times. He didn't used to do that. He didn't used to have to do that.
He's learned.
"You should eat something," he murmurs. He lifts a hand, extends it as if to touch her, but then lets it fall and glances away. He didn't used to do that, either.
"I love you," she says, simply, and though it is irrelevant, it is thick with significance.
He says nothing for a moment. He doesn't even look at her. Then, finally, "Yet you do not trust me."
She stiffens immediately.
"I know, Narcissa. I have been married to you for twenty years, now; I know you. I just cannot figure out which one or what…I was not here, I could not…"
"It is in the past, Lucius; let it rest there."
"You know as well as I that the past has ways of resurfacing."
She moves to stand before him and reaches out with both hands to touch his face, to let her fingertips brush over his nose, his jaw, his lips. She runs her hands through his hair, taking pleasure in its silkiness, soothing the scratches left by the stubble on his cheeks. He doesn't draw away but neither does he look at her, and she wonders, not for the first time, what it is that haunts him. He hasn't told her what they took from him, what they stole. In all his time back, he has not spoken of those demons of despair, of the doubts they left in his mind. It was worse at night, when sleep would take him back, far, far away from her loving arms to the lone tower where nightmares go to breed. But even when he woke up, trembling and sweating beside her, he revealed nothing.
"Tell me," she murmurs, but he only shakes his head. Her hands still upon his face.
"When did we start keeping secrets from each other?" she asks. But she knows the answer, and it comes as no surprise when he says, "Since the secrets became easier than the truth."
-oOo-
She cringes as he releases, his strained, elongated groan grating her ears. She senses everything but feels nothing. His cock slips out of her; his pelvis pulls back; his hand leaves her hair. He's released her now, moved away, with only a low grunt and the sound of trousers being rearranged, of everything going back as if nothing ever happened. But she's still there, pressed into that tiny space she's allowed to occupy. Her hair is mussed and her skirts are crinkled and her sides still hold the indentations of his fingers. And beneath all that, between her legs, his release is still dripping from her cunt, oozing down her thighs in a slow, sticky parade – the remnants of a filthy memory that won't ever be scrubbed away.
She focuses on the wall to keep from being sick, to keep from slipping. Slowly, ever so slowly, she unfurls her left arm from where it was pressed to her back, tucking it into her chest, tucking both arms into her chest. The world is sinking, spinning, spiraling, out of control, faster than she can keep up.
His eyes are on her. She feels his disgust before he even utters a word. She hears the sneer on his lips when he spits out, "If I knew all you were gonna do was fucking stand there, I wouldn't've bothered."
Her cheeks burn, his displeasure cutting deeply, because after all of that – after all of it – she wasn't good enough.
He walks away. She slips to the floor. After she retches, tongue thick, eyes blurred, and fingers trembling, she scrambles for the pieces, desperate to string the crystals and the pearls back into a pretty necklace.
-oOo-
She closes her eyes and he lowers his head, and they are quiet for a moment, each mourning the loss of their own dignity, nursing the shame of the state they have been reduced to.
"Everything has changed."
She opens her eyes, looks at him. He's looking away, at her peacock still standing defiantly out against the rain. He tilts his head and belts out a loud, baleful cry, and it pierces the din, carrying above the continuous clap of rain against hard ground and stone. It's a split second of passion and emotion, standing against the grain, against all the malicious, manipulating forces surrounding it, like a bolt of lightning cracking across the sky, a thin ray of light that lasts for just a second but illuminates the whole world in emotional, passionate power. She wants that, wants her second of pure passion, power – life.
"Not us." Her voice is strong, cold, unyielding. She's preparing her resolve, strengthening her defenses. "Not us. We'll get through – as long as we're together, we'll get through."
He looks at her then, right into her eyes, and she's graced with his eyes on hers for the first time in a long, long time. She doesn't look away.
"Together," he repeats.
She hasn't looked away yet. Neither has he.
They are still guarding secrets – poorly concealed, but blanketed nevertheless under a shroud of shame. With all that is happening, she has to know; despite all that has happened, she needs to know.
"Do you love me?" she asks. "Still, do you love me?"
Heart stops. Skin turns cold.
Anticipation.
He reaches up to take her hands and brings them to his lips to place a kiss on her fingers.
Heart beats fast. Skin flushes warm.
Relief.
"I am, and have always been, more in love with you than you can possibly imagine."
She finds her redemption in his eyes, in the pools of silver, and hopes that he will draw strength from her sapphires.
"Make love to me," she says, softly. He says nothing.
She rises onto her toes to place a kiss upon his lips. And it's a soft kiss, a gentle kiss, a tender and loving kiss, until all at once his lips are moving against hers, parting, testing, tasting, and his mouth is open to hers and her tongue is caressing his against the roof of her mouth…
It isn't until he lowers her onto the bench that her mind realizes what her body already has: he has kissed her back.
Phew! This is the darkest thing I have ever written and my first M-rated piece. Your thoughts would be much appreciated.