Dear readers,

Thanks for the feedback!

In this chapter, things take an… unexpected turn. ::: very evil grin :::

I hope that you will enjoy this bit, and will come back for what I have brewing in chapter five.

Id. Ego. Superego.

Conscious. Subconscious.

And are motivations always what they appear to be?

As always, please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Algolagnia

Chapter four

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People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul.

- Carl Gustav Jung

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Some time later, Lucius lay wakeful. Severus was sleeping the sleep of the endorphin-soused, leaving him to frown up at the paneled canopy of the massive four-poster, deep in thought as he tried to backtrack every step of the journey to this moment.

What the hell happened?

Well, from the soreness in his arse, it was not difficult to figure out  - Severus had fucked him silly. It was just very puzzling as to how the table had been turned. The certainty of the morning had evaporated, the direction that he once thought sure was vanished, and for the first time in a very long time, Lucius was in turmoil.

Last night, Lucius had made some very concrete and linear plans. Early this morning, he had embellished them, allowing for some flexibility in the face of the unexpected.

Later this morning, his self-control had gone right to hell and his plans were now snarled in a Gordian knot.

He examined Severus' actions, looking for clues.

Celibate. That was something Lucius had never expected, but it explained a great deal. In penance for not dying with Evan and Charles, Severus had sought to deny himself all contact with others. Initially, this had alleviated some of Severus' emotional pain – there was no effort made to express his grief or rage and the horrible agony that went with that effort. However, his isolation had turned on him at some point and became a dungeon instead of a hermitage.

There was a prickling in the back of Lucius' mind – the sickness of jealousy, the malady that he could almost cure, but never be rid of completely. With extreme distaste, Lucius examined it.

Why was it here?

Because Severus mourned his Evan so completely that he had never taken another lover? Or even sought comfort in the embrace of an old one?

Those questions led him to no answers, only into other questions. If Severus had been celibate from Evan's death until this morning, what had led him to break the custom of years? What had turned him from needy and accepting the night before to insistent and aggressive this morning?

Lucius was not overly adherent to restrictive and constraining roles, feeling that mental rigidity was the mark of a lesser mind. Sometimes one needed to fuck, sometimes to be fucked. Passive and aggressive were merely states of mind as much as pain and pleasure. Indeed, sometimes the only cure for a given condition was painful, but if the long-term affliction was more unpleasant than short-term pain, might not the choice be obvious?

With a frown and a slap to his wayward thoughts, Lucius crooked his mind back to the path.

Severus had simply wanted the comfort of sex more than he had wanted to maintain his isolation.

Furthermore, Lucius should well have known from past experience that the one sure way to make Severus want something was to appear to deny it to him. For all Lucius' gentle protestations that he would not take advantage, and that you'll see that I'm right in the morning and shh, love, shh – well, he really should have known better.

And what of Lucius' own conduct? What of that? Hmm?

Wanton to say the least, and ill-advised self-indulgence even with its best face on.

Lucius flushed, his muscles twitching involuntarily. It was not like him to be so… needy. Even on the rare occasions when he was getting a thorough fucking, he was always in perfect control. Somewhere, he had made a misstep and as pleasant as the short-term consequences were, he…

… he really did not want to know what form the long-term consequences would take. When asked to examine them, something inside him looked up and said very clearly, "No, thank you. I don't believe I will."

This was very disturbing.

Severus stirred and rolled over, wrapping an arm across Lucius' waist and snuggling close. How often had they lain like this, all those years ago? Lucius felt a dull ache in his chest when he remembered the adoration in Severus' eyes, how whole-hearted and… innocent that love had been. Evan Rosier had been a bit more cynical, but Severus had been utterly unworldly - frighteningly adult in his boy-body, voraciously intelligent, but a true naïf.

Perhaps that was wry it was so easy to pluck him away from others who might have influenced him. Most children are very much concerned with belonging, but Severus had been raised with very minimal human contact, all of it with adults. Hirelings were hirelings and from what Lucius was able to figure out, none ever remained long enough for Severus to form any attachment.

So, when Severus came to Hogwarts - small, thin, quiet, and already adept at magic that some seventh years could not perform – the 'pack' saw the different one and turned on him with a vengeance.

However, once that hat called, "Slytherin!" Severus had defenders, more loyal than blood, more a family than a House.

Lucius had been given the responsibility of tending the first years, and given a free hand. Of those boys, two were dead, one in Azbakan, one a pathetic coward with a low-rank job at the Ministry and…

Severus – a recluse, so scarred and cynical, so well armored against the world that it was painful. But there was something under all the practiced defenses, something that Lucius remembered and needed.

Lucius firmed his resolve. It was not too late and he had not lost so much ground that the goal was irretrievable. How many times had he delved souls in this same setting? A dim room with a soft bed became a safe and comfortable haven where the deepest parts of the self could be laid bare.

But how to start? Lucius' pale fingers slipped through ink-black hair, the silken texture buzzing along his nerves.

As if in answer and still deeply asleep, Severus pressed his lips against Lucius' skin, arousal percolating through his sleeping mind. How often had he woken Severus with kisses and caresses, delighting in the responses of his slumber-fogged lover?

Often enough to know how very well it worked.

The smile returned to Lucius' face, his body affirming the memory. 

And he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It was time to see if Severus was still as sensitive in certain spots as Lucius remembered.

Sliding down in the bed, he brought his face even with Sev's. With slow kisses, he began to map the face he loved. Cheeks, chin, eyelids, and even that slash right between his eyebrows was something for Lucius to savor.

Severus was so relaxed in sleep that it was as if a decade had been lifted from him. Oh, for those ten years back! Give Lucius a time-turner and there was so much that he would undo!

A soft baritone hum of contentment urged Lucius on, adding caresses to kisses – though to be strictly truthful he could not stop touching Sev any more than he could stop breathing. The loss of control disturbed him but more disturbing was to be…

The thought was banished as Sev opened his eyes and flowed into Lucius' embrace like some creature from a wet dream, all sleep-flavored kisses and warm skin. Was it absence, or had fifteen years time merely distilled what was there, making Severus into a purer essence of himself? Whatever it was, Lucius was as powerless before this as he would be under veritaserum.

Rolling Severus onto his back without breaking the kiss, Lucius' tongue delved deep into Severus' mouth. It was as if his lover was melting under him, around him, drawing him in. Breaking the kiss, Lucius stared down at Sev, his Sev, with a feeling that he could not put name to – and felt fear brush at the edges of his control, but could put no reason to that fear.

Severus raised his hand, fingers brushing Lucius' cheek, winding through his hair, and pulled him gently back down. The kiss was so tender, but so intense that Lucius could not have broken it if he knew he would die in the next minute. The something that Lucius needed, craved, must have was in that kiss, behind it, all through it and it nearly brought him to tears. The sound that came up from his chest, breaking low in his throat, was one that he thought he could not make.

It was Severus who broke the kiss, gasping, "What you need, it's yours. Always has been. Take it."

Something in Lucius' body, in a place he could not quite pinpoint, gave way. He lost himself in the taste of Severus' skin, the tiny points of nipples, the texture of fine black hair, the taste and scent of his sex. Not stopping there, Lucius set out to remap every part of his beloved's body. He revisited places almost forgotten and joyfully rediscovered – the inner join of thigh and torso, the back of the knees, the palms of the hands and those beautiful tapered fingers.

Lucius rediscovered how to make Severus purr, whine, curse and plead. All through it, he felt almost as if he was lost, only now able to find a familiar path home.

He feathered kisses down Sev's spine, leaving behind the strange, irrational thoughts – drowning them in passion and desire. The play of muscle and bone, sinew and tendon under his mouth was pure delight. Severus was moaning threats and endearments liberally laced with obscenities before Lucius was two-thirds of the way down.

He stopped, grinning against Sev's tailbone.

"Lucius… you beautiful… bastard!"

Lucius tsk-tsked and bit Sev on the left buttock, making him yelp. "My parents were married, Sev, and I was even born ten months after the wedding. Now ask nicely, I taught you better than that."

"Please?" Purred as Severus looked over one shoulder. The man's voice was devastating!

Lucius pretended to consider. The first time he had done this to Severus, Lucius damn near had to peel him off the wall behind the bed.

He moved his mouth lower.

Same reaction - he'd rediscovered the spell Severus Leviosa.

After that, time seemed to become more elastic and Lucius allowed himself to be lost in it from moment to moment. Spit and fingers, the old dormitory standby of furtive boys, came into play and when Lucius pushed himself up, covered Severus with his body and took him…

The world blew apart.

He took Sev and Sev took him, impaled like a butterfly on a mounting pin. Caught in the rhythm that Lucius forced, driving into his body, pulling from him with merciless strokes of his hand, and Lucius had never seen anything he could happily die looking at but this oh this lover of his!

"Aimé mon aimé… ma seulement… ah! Si! Prenez-moi profondément… Je t'aime mon adoré!"

Each word pulled from him, poured in Severus' ear with every panting breath that clawed out of him and Sev was so hard - hard like iron before it melts, forging something out of them both thrusts like hammer blows and Severus moving under him, around him, all heat and black and white.

"Lucius God yes please fuck yes…!" as Lucius felt Sev's body stutter and buck, muscles thrumming and they were both gone. Lucius lost in a rush of light and dark, physical pleasure and a deep anguish that left him decimated and lost.

When the world came back to him, he was in Sev's arms, cradled against his chest as Severus kissed tears from his face.

Lucius couldn't move. Couldn't speak. He did not howl, but tears like droplets of molten iron slipped one by one from his eyes. He wanted to run - from what or to what he could not say even to himself - but all he did was tremble in Sev's embrace.

"Tell me," Severus whispered.

~

TBC