UNDEFINABLE MERCY:
Set in Severus and Lucius' early twenties. Who knows if their mutual regard has endured?
Lucius winced as he apparated back into Severus' apartment in time to hear the young man be violently sick in the bathroom. Slipping his Death Eater mask off of his face, Lucius moved sadly across the room to rest his forehead against the bathroom door.
His head sank in anguish as he heard as he heard Severus' desperate retching and pained, sobbing gasps, through the wood. Looking down, he saw Severus' haunting mask discarded on the floor at his feet. Lucius bent and gently lifted the mask turning it over and over slowly in his hands.
At the sound of running water, Lucius moved slightly to accommodate the opening of the door. When Severus emerged and caught sight of Lucius standing solemnly in his quarters, he blanched visibly.
As Lucius watched this thin, delicate, extraordinary man failing before him, something snapped within his chest and the pure lucidity of his empathy and outrage drove him to consider the unthinkable.
"Uh…Lucius, that wasn't… it wasn't because of the meeting!" Severus struggled desperately to convince them both. "– I mean, it wasn't the things we did…I can handle them, Lucius- it's not a problem - I'm just ill, I…"
"Severus, don't" Lucius spatin emotionaltorment, "Don't be so ridiculous – I know you can't stand the mutilation. It would be easier if you could actually bring yourself to believe in any of the aspects of our cause…" His voice deadened bitterly, quashed by the very weight of the decision he was now resolved upon.
Severus read another meaning in the cold, despondent tone of Lucius' accusation. His pale face, always so composed, crumpled into distortion, almost relief at the final release of such a dangerous, powerful acknowledgement regard to his sympathies. Severus did not have to hide anymore; Lucius understood his situation – Severus no longer had to live in fear; his life was not his burden to protect now – the responsibility had fallen to Lucius, for better or worse.
"I'm sorry, Lucius. I tried so hard not to disappoint you. I would have followed you, down any path. To the end. But I act only out of loyalty and devotion to you; I feel no true affinity with any of this, Lucius… and it's making me…less stable."
Severus shook his head in despair. "The Dark Lord remains, quite rightfully, unconvinced of my loyalty, and the further he continues to test me, the more I hate myself, and the more I hate you for my being so utterly, and unwaveringly under your influence. Gods, Lucius, you are everything to me, I'm almost becoming you…"
Lucius closed his eyes, wrapping one hand around Severus' neck and drawing him to him, to press their foreheads together in a rare display of intimacy.
He could not see this continue. His relationship with Severus was not one that he shared with the outside world, and as such, it played uniquely on his own sense of morality and compassion. Nothing that passed between them mattered on a social scale, and so their interaction held a significance and an overwhelming influence over their being that was unparalleled in any other area of their lives.
Each existed as the only testimony to the other's capacity for decency, as circumstances stood. As it was a secret held unto themselves.
Lucius could not watch this man waste into nothingness and decay before his eyes because of Lucius' own personal predicament and unclean allegiances. He had watched Severus wither and suffer for him in these past few months since the man accepted the Dark Mark to unite them in one plight.
It was always the same; the atrocities of the meeting combined with the Dark Lord's malicious tormenting of Severus on both physical and emotion planes, left the fragile, beautiful man retching in self-disgust and abhorrence, rocking in horrified and impenetrable silence, or sobbing himself recklessly into nightmares.
And Lucius was always there watching…and lying to himself in excusing Severus' suffering. Proving that Lucius' own renowned 'heartlessness' was indeed an attribute he had magnificently earned.
Severus was no monster, despite his undeniable right and the general expectancy for him to seize such a title, and Lucius realised as he felt the flutter of Severus' eyelashes against his own, that this was why he loved this man.
"This stops now, Severus. You cannot continue in this - I cannot… I do not want you to. This does not have to be your fate, Severus… I am too far gone; there's nothing left for me on the other side. But we are fighting the losing battle. It may not seem so now, but such passionate hate as our Lord inspires only burns and destroys. Nothing worth having can come from it, and I will not see you sacrifice yourself in his name."
Severus raised his dark, shinning eyes, shaking his head in fervent dismay, but Lucius put a finger to his lips, remaining firm, although his voice cracked with emotion as he pleaded, "I am dying with you, Severus!"
A single tear rolled down Severus' hollowed cheek.
Lucius ran a thumb reverently across the man's elegant jawbone. "You will return to Dumbledore, Severus. He will grant you absolution and protect you…"
"What? Lucius, no!" Severus drew back in horror. "I will not fight against you – I thought you meant to betray me, to have the Dark Lord cleanse me through death, not…this… I cannot do that, Lucius! How could we survive on opposite sides of this? I have to be with you, Lucius-"
"Then remain alive! If you don't so this your soul will be unsalvageable. The blackening of my own is deep set, but with every assurance of your safety the darkness lifts slightly. Help me, Severus. Save yourself…"
Severus seized Lucius' tall straight form and heightened his grip on the ethereal body.
"Thank you, Lucius." Severus smiled sadly into the jaded, grey eyes. "Do not abandon all hope for your own soul. It is circumstance and destiny that has led it to these grim waters, not fault in your own character."
Lucius shuddered suddenly, lowering his head in shame and despair. "You will ever be a good man, Lucius." Severus' fingers beneath his chin raised his head to its dignified height, and, unsteadily, Lucius met the fervent emotion in the huge, black eyes.
"I will not forsake you. We will find our way out in the end."
This is this the end.
Please review.I am consumed withlove for these characters.