He stayed away from his patient slash captive for almost a week, letting Ollie see to Tom's care. Pretending he didn't care.
Pretending he didn't feel.
Until Ollie approached him with hesitant steps,
"Boss… He's awake."
"How is he?"
The fever had broken a while ago, the bullet wounds healing nicely, he knew. Ollie had insisted Tom needed sustenance beyond the occasional bottle of blood they'd been feeding him if Harry wanted him to get… and stay well.
He allowed it, but Tom remained shackled to the bed Harry used to sleep in.
"He is stronger…"
Ollie glanced away then back quickly,
"He is insisting that he see you."
Ofcourse, he was,
"He has been fed?"
Ollie nodded,
"And bathed."
Harry could only imagine Tom's reaction to having Ollie give him his sponge bath,
"You may go."
Ollie's eyes widened,
"Sir, I…"
He didn't look back to make sure Ollie followed his order as he strode to the bedroom Tom occupied and stepped inside.
He shut the door quietly behind him, and stood there, taking in the man on the bed. He had some colour to his skin again, aside from the blue and black bruises from his rough treatment under Harry's hands.
Rough treatment.
He deserved so much more than just that rough treatment.
His hair had grown a bit, Harry realized, falling down to the middle of his forehead. Ollie had dressed him in a white t-shirt and black sweats. Tom's dominant hand, the left, was shackled to the metal bed frame, as was his left ankle.
His eyes had been closed, but at the sound of the door closing they flew open.
They watched each other, and in the depths of Tom's eyes Harry saw relief and more. But those other things, he refused to acknowledge them. Instead he walked closer, never breaking eye contact, until he stood next to the bed, staring down at Tom.
"So, it's true,"
Tom murmured,
"You're keeping me alive."
His voice was still a bit weak and hoarse, but the sound of him…
Harry's pulse galloped in his ears and he couldn't deny that,
"Mr. Voldemort, I hear you're better."
He took an obscene amount of pride in the steadiness of his tone.
"Depends on who you ask."
Tom's mouth curved into his trademark smirk,
"I'm alive, but I could be better."
He rattled on the cuffs around his hand for effect.
"You wanted to see me."
He didn't bother phrasing it as a question.
"I did, and I have to say, you do look good."
Tom licked his lips,
"I was sure all that silver had poisoned my brain…"
He eyed Harry up and down,
"But no."
Dangerous heat swirled in Harry's lower belly. He gritted his teeth,
"What do you want?"
All mirth disappeared from Tom's eyes, and his expression turned serious. His gaze was heavy, locking onto Harry's and keeping him rooted to the floor,
"Do you really want to know what I want?"
Tom asked softly,
"Are you sure that's a question you want answered?"
So many things he'd seen and done, but Harry found at that moment that he wasn't strong enough brave enough, to follow that question where it would inevitably lead. That weakness, that vulnerability angered him. He gritted out,
"Do you mistake me for one of the fools you play with?"
Tom observed him, his eyes saying things his mouth didn't. The silence, thick and charged, made a mockery of Harry's words.
"This is your bed, isn't it?"
Tom' unfettered leg slid up and down the mattress,
"I can smell you on the sheets. On the pillows."
His chest rose and fell when he took a deep breath,
"You slept here."
He closed his eyes, making a low hum in the back of his throat.
Harry watched with his mouth dry and his hands fisted. Otherwise he'd touch him. He'd press a thumb to the pulse at the base of Tom's throat. He'd brush his knuckles across his scarred cheek. He'd slide his fingers through the hair brushing Tom's forehead.
He'd touch him.
"James"
His body jerked, and his gaze flew from Tom's mouth back to his eyes,
"Never call me that…"
He lashed out.
Every time. Every single time he got in the Tom's vicinity he lost his resolve. Lost his focus. No matter how hard he tried, emotion ruled him. Anger and regret along with the new ones, want and betrayal.
"Why am I still here?"
Tom was the calm one, gaze steady, voice smooth,
"Why am I still alive?"
Harry turned away, giving Tom his back as he headed for the door. He had to get out of there. His chest felt as if it were caving in on him. The pressure inside him built, getting too big, too much. He had to get out.
Turned coward so quickly, but yes, he wanted to turn tail and run. He saw it coming, that fall. Saw himself walk into the inferno with arms flung wide, heat from the flames stripping him to bone.
"Don't you walk away. Answer me!"
Tom yelled,
"Answer me! Give me that."
"Give you?"
Harry swung around and went right back to him,
"Give you?"
He pulled the gun from his waist. Trembling. He shook something dreadful. Emotion crashing down on him in one swoop,
"I should give you? After everything you took from me, I should give you?"
"Yes."
So bold. Defiant. The way he demanded. The way he owned that selfishness. It shouldn't make Harry's pulse stutter.
He'd been dead since Fenrir had left, and this man brought him back to life. His voice. His blood. His eyes. They brought Harry back to life.
It was wrong.
This want. It was wrong. But wrong felt so right, the way it writhed thick and warm along his spine. Like hot, spiced honey.
He put the gun to Tom's forehead. Pressed it against him,
"You're alive because you're mine. Your blood… Your life… Your death. Mine."
Harry pounded his chest with one hand, the other holding the gun pointed at Tom. Right between the eyes,
"I'm the one who decides when to end your existence."
The other man just watched him, with wide eyes. Accepting.
"I should give you what you gave me."
The words were lava-hot on his tongue,
"Sorrow like I've never felt. Pain I didn't think I'd ever escape."
With the way he shook, the gun skidded across Tom's forehead, landing at his left temple,
"You took him. In the blink of an eye, you took him from me."
"I know."
He knew. Of course, he knew what he'd done. The damage he'd caused. The hell he'd unleashed. He knew,
"What should I give you then?"
Harry asked in a whisper,
"What do I have that you haven't already taken, Tom Riddle? I have exactly one silver bullet in this gun. Is that what you want?"
Tom stared up at him, teeth in his bottom lip, nostrils flared. The pulse at his throat beat wildly.
Harry pulled the trigger.
Click.
Tom didn't flinch.
"What do you want? ANSWER ME!"
He roared. A hairsbreadth from shattering. He heard the sharp cracks. Heard his control collapse to the floor at his feet. His grip on the gun was tenuous at best, same as his grip on his sanity. He stared down at the man on that bed.
Torn apart.
"Your touch…"
Tom's voice, it trembled too,
"I crave it."
e