A simple favour. That's how it all starts. He owes Voldemort and when you owe a man like that, the choice is payment or death.
What Voldemort gives him is a gift. Something more precious, more valuable than anything money or power can buy. The only thing that matters, as far as Tom's concerned. Especially after everything he cares about gets taken from him.
Turns out the price for revenge and purpose is a lifetime of servitude. But it's a price Tom's more than willing to pay for his father's death. Nothing else will warm what little is inside him after his mother. Except the fire he lights around the man who helped conceive him. He's been birthed anew now, to a man more powerful than anyone he's ever known.
If only he had seen the shackles before it's too late. Before such a powerful man turned his attention to things that ripped and tore at his sanity and reason. Because it's only then that Tom realises. He's been reeled in by lies and caught in a web spun by an even bigger devil than his old man.
WASHINGTON DC, U.S.A. 11:07 PM.
A sleek black Mercedes sits on the curb a few meters down the road from where a government-sponsored event is set to take place. A throng of reports linger restlessly outside, waiting for the target to arrive.
Tom sits and watches, waits and observes. Calculates. But then a memory rises, unbidden, in the small, dark space of the car. Of sitting in one much like it, with the exception of a scent that was sharp, earthy, and sweetly comforting. An aroma that makes Tom think of spice cakes and dark chocolate with a hidden bite.
Looking over at the pale profile of his mate, Tom's Sentinel sight picks up every detail in the dark. Traces the masculine but delicate features with careful reverence. Lingers on the glare from the streetlights on round glasses, masking the true vibrancy of that titanite gaze beneath them... But not enough for him to miss the glaze marking the beginnings of a deep thought.
"Focus," Tom says, and watches as a dark pink blooms, spreads up that delicious expanse of neck. Delighted by the path it takes across the other man's cheeks to the tips of his ears. Tom allows a smirk to play round the edges of his mouth. "You'd make an abysmal hit man," he adds.
Harry takes a vindictive bite out of a chocolate bar he'd stashed in the passenger compartment. "Good."
The distant blare of a car horn jerks Tom out of the memory, the sound amplifying and reverberating through his skull. Then it cuts off, only to be replaced by the shuffle of feet on pavement along with muffled voices, wind, the clink and scrape of cutlery in a nearby restaurant —
Stop.
Tom's hands fist the material of his trouser legs. Deep breath, he tells himself. Ground yourself. You've been doing it for years. This time is no different.
Except it is.
Because he isn't here. Hasn't been here for the past few years. Next to Tom, where he should always be. His anchor to what is, and his conduit to more. Harry isn't here…
Not yet, Tom vows silently. Soon he'll be by Tom's side again. For now, he mustn't think about it. Now, he needs to concentrate. To focus.
He's never had to struggle to find control like this. It seems the broken bond left a deeper scar than any mission he's had over the years. The severed union leaves him untethered, unstable, weak. His sight sharpens to near molecular level before snapping back to near blindness. He's assaulted with noise one minute and deafened with nothing in the next. His clothes are nails against his skin and become so numb that a hammer to his hand can't make him feel anything.
But what is worst of all is that his sense of smell becomes the least reliable. Although unsurprising, the fact leaves Tom more irascible than anything else. Scent is known to be one of the strongest of the senses when it comes to forming intimate bonds. It's what hooked him to Harry when they met, and the precursor to how he would taste and feel…
It's unacceptable, and at best the situation has frequently left Tom simmering in impotent rage. At worst, it's left him lashing out with oftentimes literal dumb, blind wrath. Hurting and destroying where he can, just because he can. Whether it's with words, fists, or weapons.
But he doesn't have time for that now. Now, he has a mission.
A swell of voices, muffled by the reinforced car door, sounds in the distance and Tom pulls out a small box. Before the commotion outside can grow to potentially distracting levels, he retrieves a set of devices and places them carefully in his ears. A thread of tension instantly seeps from his shoulders at the sound of near-silence. Blessed, regulated noise. The plugs let him hear only what a non-Sentinel would. He pauses for a minute to ground himself further before reaching up to his face.
Tom slowly slides the prescription glasses from his eyes. Despite the shroud of night obscuring everything, he braces himself against the onslaught of imagery. He breathes through it, slowly again, and tries to focus. He anchors himself on a blade of grass a thousand or so meters away. Shivering in a cool, night breeze, vibrant like familiar eyes — No, pull back. Tom strains but manages to pull out to the image of a perfectly groomed patch of lawn. Pulls back further to the scuff mark on a cherry red heel five hundred meters away… Expand, focus, until a scene comes into view.
The target pushes through the throng of reporters with too much self importance. Security is lax and Tom honestly can't tell if it's intentional or not. It's an easy hit. Too easy. But that's not what he's here for, not this time.
Tom can concede that Voldemort had some powerful friends, ones in high places indeed. Most of whom either work for Tom now, or else are in the ground; the latter only a courtesy from Voldemort's finest ex-watchdog.
This one, though? Tom's starting to wonder if it's even worth his time. He watches the red face yell and gesticulate, spew forth words that mean nothing. An image flashes through his mind; of a similar face, shouting and spitting. Of a narrow woman and large adult son in a house on the water… All three reduced to nothing but bodies full of bullets. A courtesy, once again, given by Tom himself.
He blinks away the memory, there and gone in a second. It wouldn't even be a blip in his thoughts, normally. All the hits he's made are always carefully and thoroughly filed away afterwards. Never to be opened again or examined except in the rare case where he makes a mistake. The only reason this one resurfaces is because it marks the start of the hunt. The search for what would be his most important assignment to date.
Consciously, reluctantly, Tom turns his attention back to the current assignment. The yellow head of hair waves off reporters with an unrelenting air of arrogance. An inflated ego of a man that might be more of a benefit than a threat. Something Voldemort had undoubtedly seen as well if he managed to make his list of close allies.
But Tom's quickly come to the conclusion that this man is no more than a hindrance rather than an asset. Unpredictable, unreliable. A walking, talking, future liability if he's ever seen one.
A chime sounds in the quiet space of the car, softened by the plugs in his ears. Otherwise Tom's sure it would have thrown off his focus again. He carefully replaces his glasses on his face and slips out a sleek, shiny black phone from his pocket to find a text notification waiting for him.
Nott Jr:
(7 Attachments)
Tom's heart flutters in his chest in the way it never does for any other mission update. With greedy fingers, he opens the message and lets his eyes drink in the images he finds. Allows them to linger on each one as if they're the most rare and interesting art pieces in the world. There's seven in total; seven more to add to his gallery of the past three years of him. And still, they aren't enough. They'll never be enough, Tom thinks. Not until he has the real live person in front of him. Not until he can touch, taste, and smell his bondmate in his arms again. Solid and sure, steady and close as a heartbeat.
Each picture is taken at a different location: A cafe, work, home, the store… Tom's heart clenches and aches. The wound in back of his head pulsing like it never closed since that day three years ago… and it never did. Not for either of them, it seems. From Nott's reports, Harry's empathic abilities have greatly diminished, just as Tom's sensory ones have.
But, most importantly, no mate. Tom feels a vicious stab of pride at that. Of course he wouldn't. Because Tom would know if there was someone else. If there was, he wouldn't be able to stay this far away all these years — trusting, waiting, building. All so that they can have a future someday.
The quiet ping of another message crops up and the small glow that slowly built up in Tom's heart dies a quick, cold death.
A linked news article headline stills his breath as his fists tear into the leather carseat. The phone screen shivers, in danger of cracking and splitting like his carefully controlled composure.
Jaw clenched and with murder in his eyes, Tom finds the driver's gaze in the rearview mirror. "We're done here," he says, clipped. Curt. No explanations necessary. The driver nods, once, and the car peels away from the curb before a hesitant question is asked.
"Any particular place in mind, sir?"
With a searing mixture of urgency and grim determination surging behind tattered mental shields, Tom answers, "Home."
LONDON, ENGLAND. 3:07 AM.
Harry wakes with a jolt. The crack of a gunshot still rings in his ears as a sea of red pulses behind his vision. A pair of sharp, dark eyes — forever seared into the back of his eyelids — cuts through the noise like a knife. Like that small smile; one that could kill all on its own.
Once he gets his breathing under control again, Harry checks his shields. Still battered, still bloody, but still mostly in place. His hand reaches out to scrabble on his nightstand until he finds his glasses and shoves them on his face. A quick glance over his shoulder at the platinum blond head beside him settles some of his nerves. Draco's still fast asleep. Harry lets his shoulders drop in relief. The blond prat shouldn't even be there. But Harry was too exhausted from his heat to tell him to bugger off after last night.
The clock on Harry's nightstand glares the time in an angry red and he sighs in resigned frustration. Silently and carefully, he slips out of bed and into the bathroom, flicking on the light and wincing against the brightness. He plucks off his glasses to wash his face with ice cold water. The shock of it chases away the worst of his dreams and the last ghostly glimpses of that face. Banishes it to the pit in the back of his head where it belongs until all that's left is just deadened numbness.
When he replaces his glasses on his nose, his reflection squints back at him in the medicine cabinet mirror. At his skin still dewy with cooling sweat. His chest, more toned now that he's been making an effort to practice some combat skills. Then his eyes catch on the same thing everyone else's does these days: The scar. A crude effort at a brand that now just looks like a lightning bolt shape on his forehead. Pale and stark against his skin. Another reminder of what he's been through. Another reminder of the past… and of him.
Harry yanks open the medicine cabinet, tearing away his own stark image to reach for the bottle of electric blue pills. After pouring two into his hand, he grabs the glass next to the sink and fills it under the tap. He drowns the pills with it before filling up another glass.
After slamming the cabinet closed again, Harry pushes away from the sink with a weary sigh. He flicks off the light to feel his way back through the pitch darkness of his room. Yanking on whatever piece of clothing he finds on the ground, he finds the door and slips out into the hall. He heads to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. There's no point in going back to sleep now anyway. There never is on nights like these. Not when the dreams yammer and claw to come out and plague his unconscious.
Harry sits in his tiny living room for what feels like an indeterminable amount of time. Only aware of a cup of tea cooling in his hands as a weak blue-grey light begins to filter in through the windows. From the soft rumble of traffic outside, the city's begun to wake. Harry closes his eyes, and there, as if waiting for him, is the charcoal gaze. The strong hands that grip the back of his neck, connecting him through a thread to a mind; a soul that feels familiar. Like a home he's never had. A low voice rumbles like cool water trickling over jagged rocks.
"Harry."
The floorboards creak and Harry's eyes snap open, immediately latching onto the tall, pale figure standing in the corridor.
"Should know by now not to startle you," Draco says. A teasing smirk plays round the corners of his mouth, not quite hiding the uncertainty there. He raises a pale eyebrow at the nearly spilled tea still clutched in Harry's deathly grip. "You're like a deer caught in the headlights."
Harry tries to calm his racing heartbeat and bites back a bitter retort. 'You should know why,' he wants to say. But knows Draco won't understand. He never really knew Tom and never had so many people after him. Never had so many try to either fuck or kill him.
Harry silently stands to go over to the kitchen sink. He place his mug there and shoulders past Draco, for all intents and purposes ready to pretend he isn't there.
"You're up early," Draco pushes.
Harry fusses around the kitchen, busying his hands, and shrugs one shoulder. Not up to explaining, least of all to Draco. "Couldn't sleep," he says instead.
Draco slinks into the kitchen and leans a hip against the counter. He folds his arms over his chest and although he isn't as built as Tom was, he's about his height. He looks down at Harry in an infuriating mix of suspicion and reluctant concern. "You were projecting again last night, you know."
Harry freezes, shoulders bunching up before he scrubs harder at the mug.
Draco, finding the bruise as always, presses harder. "I don't know who you think you're fooling, scarhead, but you're fucked up in the head."
This time Harry doesn't hold back. He whirls on Draco and spits, "Then maybe you should fuck off when I tell you to and you wouldn't have to be there to feel it."
Draco doesn't seem to expect the amount of vitriol and raises his hands in a falsely placating gesture. When Harry's chest doesn't feel like it's full of so much fire anymore, Draco puts them back down again and continues. "Come on, Potter, don't you think this charade is getting a little old?" he says, almost wheedling. "You pretend you don't want me to fuck you, we fight, but in the end you WANT me to stay. Just say it!"
Harry grinds his teeth together. "Piss off, Malfoy."
"You're scared."
"You wish."
The shrill tone of Harry's cell goes off, cutting off any further retorts. It's a welcome distraction and Harry almost sighs in relief. He readily abandons the half-hearted attempt to make breakfast for himself to answer it.
"I hope you're sitting down for this."
Although he can't get a Guided reading on his friend, the tone of voice says it all. Something's wrong. "Why? What's happened?" Harry says, even as he shoulders past Draco again into the living room and ignores the pale, watchful eyes that follow him. The Sentinel prick's listening in on the call anyway.
Ron sounds faint now when he replies. "Channel five-oh-three, though I'll wager half the world's news channels are on it by now."
Harry grabs the remote and flicks on the telly while Draco comes to stand beside him. Undoubtedly just as curious and apprehensive about the sudden fuss.
Then the big, bold words at the bottom of the screen register and send a heavy jolt of shock spearing into Harry's heart.
BREAKING: BELLATRIX LESTRANGE ESCAPES MAX SECURITY PRISON
A coiffed woman wearing a stern expression reports, "... At around three o'clock this morning, Azkaban women's prison reported a breakout. The escapee has been confirmed as the convicted murderer Bellatrix Lestrange, former associate for the now-deceased CEO Voldemort of Basilisk Security Solutions. Police are asking for any information regarding her whereabouts…"
A wave of dread surges up in the pit of Harry's stomach. He's not entirely sure it solely belongs to him though, as Draco's voice hisses beside him: "Fuck."