Hello, Readers!

Here is the next bit of the story. Think of this chapter as 'Deconstructing Lucius.'

I hope that you will enjoy and do let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Chaos

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Algolagnia

Chapter 6

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Implosion: the act of bringing to or as if to a center.

Integration: coordination of mental processes into a normal effective personality or with the individual's environment

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Lucius was wrapped in blankets, with Severus curled around him in the twilight of the bedroom.

The pallor, sweats and tremors had deeply alarmed Sev, who had immediately poured a whacking big cup of something down Lucius' throat. Whatever was in that potion, it was just wicked – every muscle in Lucius' body felt like sun-melted taffy and there was a low hum that seemed to have settled in the back of his skull.

Now if he could just get his damned eyes to stop leaking, he'd be fine.

If he could close his eyes and never open them again in this life; that might be better.

So strange to desire death, the oblivion that most would dare anything to avoid. If anyone loved life and the pleasures of the flesh, it was Lucius.

Had Severus felt like this once? Had he taken wavering, drugged steps into the kitchen, and found the little silver knife? What had he thought as he looked at it in his hand? Had he tested the blade, smiling as it bit into his flesh? Severus, ever fastidious, would not have wanted anyone to clean up after him – so he chose the bathroom with its utilitarian white tile and deep tub for his self-exsanguination.

"Did it hurt?" he asked.

Severus hesitated, as if to figure out what part of his life Lucius was inquiring about. "To what are you referring?"

"When you cut your arm open. Did it hurt very much?" Ooh. Bad. Whatever was in that cup was kicking his metaphorical arse.

"Not so much, I thought, as living."

Lucius closed his eyes. Poor Severus. Look what he had done to his beloved. "What was it like? Tell me about it."

Silence.

"Please?" How often did a Malfoy say 'please' for anything? Please, stick a knife in me. Please, give the pain I gave to you back to me.

"I woke. Alone. That potion you gave me, I had been using it for a while. I had developed a tolerance."

"Using it? For insomnia?"

"Yes."

Lucius digested this in silence. Insomnia. A physical manifestation of a psychological disturbance.

"I was thirsty. You'd taken my wand and I went into the kitchen for some water. The knife – I had been using it earlier. It was on the drain board of the sink." Severus paused, took an unsteady breath, "I picked it up, ran my thumb up the blade and watched my blood drip into the sink. It felt… right to do that."

So well, he knew – Severus had indeed tested the blade. "To cut yourself?"

"Yes. I stood there for a long time, I think. The bleeding would stop. I would make another cut, and let more out. I… don't remember what decided me." He stopped, breathing ragged.

Lucius felt as if he were emptying out, everything was flowing out of him. Hollow and empty, the essence that held him together was flowing away like the deep crimson of Sev's blood on the white porcelain.

"Go on, please." Please tell me. Please let me know what to expect. Please…

"I thought, maybe, if I could just let enough blood out, I could feel… something. Anything but like something in the middle of me was swallowing the rest of me whole." Severus' voice was low and desperately steady. "I ran the water in the bath and got in, it was warm. I put the knife at the bend of my elbow and pushed the tip of the blade in. I was so… drugged, insane, whatever that I thought I saw Evan yelling at me. I asked… I asked him to wait for me, that this wouldn't take long. I told him that I was sorry."

Tears took Lucius' sight as Severus tightened around him. Such pain between them that it felt incandescent – like Severus' words would immolate him so thoroughly that not even ashes would be left.

"Please, Severus, give me the rest." Please, I need to know. Please help me. Please, I'm afraid…

"I cut, down through my arm from elbow to wrist. I could see muscle, tendon, all the way to bone and then the blood came out and I was happy. I was cold, and sank down in the water, but couldn't stop sinking until I was under… and the blood, Lucius, I watched the… my blood color the water and I couldn't move…" Severus was shivering now, reliving those moments. Could he see the blood as it tinged the water pink and then a bright, arterial ruby red? "Then everything was… gone. I was… I don't know… I tried to go somewhere and I couldn't. I was pulled… back? I woke up here, tied to a bed and having Hemo-Boost poured down my throat. Some Death Eater. Couldn't even kill myself right…"

Severus' voice was lost in tears and Lucius had no words to comfort him. He had only the memories that seared him, and the final step to make.

"Charles, Evan, come. I have an errand for you to run for me."

Severus looked up from the book bound in human skin balanced on his knees as Voldemort – Lucius behind him - swept into the laboratory. Charles and Evan were bitching happily at each other over some scroll in a variant of Greek and occasionally pulling Severus into the argument just for fun. The three young men were the most brilliant academics of the inner circle and this would be well within their purview.

"The Aurors have an artifact that we must obtain, an object of ancient and astonishing power that they intend to hide in the British Museum." The lipless mouth lengthened in mimicry of a smile. "The cowards would take the Cauldron of Cerridwen and display it to Muggles! The fools. Come the day, my boys, and we will take back all of our heritage they would hold in that citadel and return it to those of the blood and the will to use them!"

Oh, didn't that just get them chomping at the bit! Severus had come close to begging to be allowed to go. The Cauldron of Cerridwen was the close to being the Holy Grail of potions masters – a position that the young man had newly attained. Severus was the youngest to rise to that exalted rank in more than a four hundred years.

"No, my dear child, I have some research that I would have you conduct personally. I know your keen mind, Severus, and will give the Cauldron to you myself, once it is in hand." The thin white arm looped itself possessively across Severus' shoulders. "Come, the writings I have… acquired on the Cauldron of Cerridwen are extensive. I have no doubt you will find them useful."

It was the last time Lucius had seen them all together - the day that what Lucius had come to call The Shattering had begun. The Shattering would end the day that the last of his charges were sentenced to Azkaban, never to be free again on this side of the grave.

Memory was crystal clear; Evan with his wavy blond hair pulled back, the cowl of his robes around his shoulders. Tall and thin Charles, his features sharp and watchful, his brown hair perpetually mussed and murky green eyes always shadowed. He tried to imagine them as Severus said he had seen them – brutalized instead of the blankness that the Avada Kedrava gave its victims.

Just one minute.

"Severus – Evan and Charles, you said they were… marked?"

There was a long silence. "Lucius, however they died, it wasn't from an Avada. They were… Lucius, they were mauled. Evan had been bled white and I saw ligature marks on Charles' wrists and neck.  I know how those marks are made. I have made them on others myself." Severus' voice shook, "The did not die by Avada Kedrava, someone tortured them to death. I think they banished the bodies as much as a psychological weapon as to cover the fact that the kills were not… clean."

Blood sport was not sport to Severus – not as it was to the inner circle. Severus never killed without necessity, when information was required it was gotten by effective methods void of the excesses taken by many. He would simply sniff in disdain and say that he'd prefer to expend his energies on worthier adversaries than a gang-raped  Muggle child. It did not endear him to many, and that Evan and Charles shared his opinion caused some comment. Lucius defended them – academics were different, their only ambition was knowledge.

Severus did enjoy his toys, though – he tended them well, keeping them alive and in good condition to play with for a very long time. When he was bored, he'd simply Obliviate them and dump them nude on some country road. They usually turned up in Muggle tabloids talking about being abducted by space aliens. Severus collected the articles, thinking it great sport. Evan and Charles eventually joined him in it, adding their own toys, and soon the walls of their lair and laboratory were covered with the damned Muggle papers.

But…

"Evan and Charles are dead. The Aurors laid us a trap, and now two of our best and most promising young men are no more." The circle – less three, now that Severus was in interrogation – hissed like a nest of serpents at their Lord's words. "They were ambushed, killed by Avada Kedrava when they would not surrender. They died for our cause, my friends. Our blood has been shed – now go and drown them all in our revenge!"

Death Eaters began Apparating – hunting blood to spill. The week was actually called Reaper's Walk in the history books, with the Death Eaters taking two hundred lives to honor Evan and Charles. Many were convinced that Severus would be the next to be honored so, choosing to follow his lover in death.

"Lucius."

"My Lord?"

"I have another task for you, my most trusted one."

"How may I serve my Lord?"

"Go to the Ministry, and wait. I fear that Severus could break under questioning. Wait for him to be released, and if you think at any time that he has been turned…"

Lucius sobbed. He hadn't been able to do it. Not if Severus had foresworn his Mark on the steps of the Ministry could he have done it.

He would tell Severus everything. Severus would kill him. It would be over.

"The Lord came to me… he asked…" Every word uttered was racked up from Lucius' being like a rotten corpse from charnel pit.

Deconstruction - the opposite of construction. Lucius was dismantling himself word by word. He had failed so dismally to protect his charges, he was bathed in their blood and nothing could ever wash it away. Life after life that he had been given responsibility for; blown out one by one like a row of candles.

"What happened, it was my fault. I killed them." Eyes clenched shut, it all came ripping out of him in burst of words broken by sobs – he felt as if he'd been flayed and gutted. "I killed them Severus, as if I'd spoken the Avada myself, I…"

The deconstruction ended. He was nothing more than bones.

Silence. Only the movement of Severus' chest against his back let him know that the other man was still breathing.  The minutes stretched into agony for Lucius – was this how his some of his ancestors had felt as they waited for the axe to part them from their lives? Lucius waited, willing the tears to stop, wanting to meet death like a man.

Then, softly, the two words that broke him, "I know."

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