Disclaimer: Same as usual.
Chapter 5: The pain of unrequited love
NB: This is the last chapter. Don't complain to me if you don't like it. I just do what the voices tell me to.
This time it's him who finds me in the library, pretending to read up on hexes. He looks around expectantly and I can't help but grin.
"Looking for someone, Lucius?" He attempts a smile.
"I just thought Severus would be with you, hanging onto your every word." He doesn't know it, but I enjoy his bitter sarcasm. It's what attracted me to him in the first place.
"No. He's taking care of some business for me."
"What have you done, Tom?" The shock in his voice mirrors the dismay on his pale features and the slight irregularity of his heartbeat, so loud in my alert ears.
"Nothing, Lucius. Only given him the task of ridding me of a certain thorn in my side." I look up from my book and look into his startled eyes. "Nothing more than I'd ask of you."
"You've ruined him! He was perfect and you've tainted him! Why do you have to wreck everything you touch?" His cheeks are flushed with anger and frustration, his eyes are bright and his hair ruffled where he runs his pale fingers through it. I don't think he's ever looked sexier.
"Temper temper. There is no such thing as a perfect human, and I have not ruined him. Not yet." I almost whisper the last two words, but I know he hears them.
"Please don't hurt him, Tom. Please. Don't you think he's gone through enough pain in his relatively short life already?" The sudden softness of his voice makes it clear to me that he cares for the raven-haired boy, and I laugh inside at his irrepressible emotions, the main source of the internal struggle he constantly faces. Although I admit that the wretched beauty of my newest and youngest ward has let me in a state of hopeless infatuation, I will never be fool enough to experience ,and therefore stake everything on, love.
"I can do what I want. I've killed whole families and tortured innocent people; massacred villages and disgraced great leaders; unflinchingly listened to people call to me for mercy and even murdered my own family. Why would I feel any regret at hurting that greasy, hooked-nosed brats feelings?"
"You bastard." Lucius had time only to draw in a quick gasp before be found himself pinned to the table by his neck with my wand at his temple.
"DON'T! Once again you forget your place. Don't make me kill you Lucius, because I will. You and your pretty little wife." I loosen my hold on his neck and he toils to slow his breathing. We're silent for a few moments, listening only to an old house creaking at every movement made within it.
"You don't really think he's a greasy, hooked-nosed brat." The statement would usually anger me, but the dejection in Lucius' voice is enough to satisfy me that I've won. I step back and allow him to stand.
"No, Lucius. I don't. I think he's the most beautiful boy I've ever met." I start to walk away, aware that Lucius could kill me at any second, and secure in the thought that he wouldn't. "But I get over my infatuations quickly enough, as you well know." I stop at the door and look back at him with a smile. "Remember?"
bdbdbdbd
Severus stood in the centre of his room, for once in his life unsure of what to do. It came as a relief when Tom came to find him rather than the other way around. Severus tried to smile and found he couldn't, and so looked down at his feet.
"Did you kill her." Tom's voice was harsh and Severus blushed as he nodded towards the floor. Tom's demeanour softened instantly and he swept the uncomfortable, melancholic youth into his arms.
"Good. It needed to be done Sev. But it's over now."
"Don't make me do it again, Tom. Don't make me kill anyone else. Please?" Severus clung to him like a desperate child and buried his head in his shoulder, feeling the need to be close to the warmth of a human. Tom tenderly stroked his ebony hair, patiently soothing the sobbing boy, feeling elated by the sensation of being wanted. He drew Severus down onto the bed to lie beside him, stroking his cheek and kissing away his tears.
"Tom? I don't think we should do this."
"What's wrong? Don't you love me?" Severus looked regretful that his careless statement could have suggested that, and tried hurriedly to repent his mistake.
"Of course I do! More than anything!"
"Well what's wrong? We don't have to do anything if you're not ready." Severus hesitated momentarily, before smiling and shaking his head.
"No. I'm fine." Tom stroked a strand of hair from his face and trailed delicate kisses along his cheekbones, delighting at the small giggle that escaped Severus' lips as his breath whispered against his ear.
"Trust me."
Bdbdbdbd
Tom stayed awake long after Severus had fallen asleep, his head on Tom's pallid chest and a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He thought of Lucius, and how he controlled nothing, when he had the power to make Severus smile and laugh like a normal, contented teenager, and the power to snatch everything away from him in the blink of an eye.
Bdbdbddbd
Severus had finished pulling his robes over his head when Tom returned from the bathroom. He glanced at him briefly before fumbling with his cufflinks.
"Oh, are you still here?" Severus looked confused, but disregarded the statement as a misunderstanding.
"I was thinking. Maybe we could tell people about us." Tom laughed briefly and casually turned to look at him.
"Why would I do that?" Severus' smile faltered and his eyebrows twitched.
"I…I thought you loved me." Tom laughed again, more loudly and with less humour.
"Why would you think that?" He smiled openly, savouring the obvious pain he was causing. "Of course I don't love you!" He rested his hand on Severus' cheek and he flinched away at the clichéd and patronising demeanour of the action. "Aw, don't be like that. You'll get over me." He placed his hand on the back of his head and pressed their lips together, bruising Severus fragile mouth when he tried to pull away.
Tom hurried to make it in time for his meeting, still laughing, and thought how Lucius would react when he saw the pain wrought on the face of his black-eyed boy.
Fin.