Chapter 5
It was early Friday afternoon and Theo was still floating on a cloud from last night. He kept running a finger absentmindedly over his lips, fantasizing about when he would be able to kiss and suckle Hermione and Draco's bodies again. They were so fucking perfect, so pristine and untouched. Theo wanted to mark them, brand them, make them his forever.
He heard a booming sound as the door of the bar was thrown open, slamming against the wall downstairs. He looked at the monitors to see none other than the mayor angrily storm into the bar. Goyle had the presence of mind to throw a napkin over the gun he was cleaning and Blaise stepped forward to speak to the mayor who was clearly so angry he was spitting in the other man's face in his fury.
Theo took a breath and pushed the button to the intercom. "Bring the mayor up to my office please, Zabini."
Blaise nodded in the direction of the camera, confirming that he'd heard.
Theo slid a few of the more questionable documents on his desk into his drawer including the first of the files on Hermione and switched off all but one monitor for the surveillance cameras.
Anticipating Amos Diggory's emotional outburst, Theo stood and poured himself a double of his favorite bourbon. Sitting back in his chair just in time for Blaise to open the office door, allowing the mayor entrance to Theo's private sanctum at the club.
Without preamble, the mayor burst out with, "Did you have something to do with my son's death?"
Blaise raised an eyebrow at Theo who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Blaise went outside the office, but Theo knew that he would be listening at the door rather than making himself scarce.
The mayor was a mess: shirt untucked, jacket not matching the pants, tie askew, hair unbrushed, smudged eyeglasses. Theo had never seen him as anything other than perfectly put together when he was in public, although Theo only ever really cared when he had been pictured with Cedric. Theo hated the empty feeling in his chest every time he thought of his lover. He bit the inside of his cheek and focused on the pain.
Theo took a long sip from his bourbon before answering, watching as the man before him vibrated with rage and despair. " , I am, of course, very sorry for your loss, but why would you ask me something like that? Cedric and I went to school together, but that was a very long time ago."
"Well then, explain this." Diggory reached into his pocket and Theo had his hand on the gun that was attached to the bottom of his desk without thinking, but the mayor only dropped the phone that Theo had given to Cedric only for calling him, nothing else. It was open to a message thread from "Daddy" and the icon was Theo's chest, wearing the suit that had been Cedric's favorite, the tie that Cedric loved to wrap around his hand when he rode Theo's cock.
Theo felt that uncomfortable tightness in his chest again and liked it even less the second time. This was simply unacceptable, was he about...to cry?
For fuck's sake. He needed to get himself under control.
The last text from "Daddy" said, "Thanks for the pleasurable afternoon, I'm going to think about you pulling my tie while you ride me all week." Cedric had only replied with a wink emoji. Their final interaction.
Would Theo have said something different if he had known it would be the last thing he said to his lover of years? He didn't know and he didn't want to examine these kinds of feelings in front of his dead lover's father of all people.
The mayor gritted out, "There are obscene pictures in that phone, from my son, and to my son."
Theo pulled out his phone, "Well, Mayor Diggory, that's not my number so regardless of the indecency you were forced to witness, this has nothing to do with me. Call the number on the phone if you like."
Diggory did and nothing rang in Theo's office because as soon as Zabini had told him of Cedric's death, he'd turned off the burner that he used with Cedric, taken out the battery and put it in a false compartment at the back of his desk drawer.
It rang and rang, the voice-mail picked up and played a clip from Time of the Season by the Zombies that Cedric had put on Theo's phone as a joke.
The singer's voice sang huskily, "What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?"
Theo remembered the afternoon that Cedric had done that, they'd been lying in bed in the little apartment, their secret hideaway. Shit. He needed to pop over and pull a few small mementos out and then have Pucey light the place on fire tonight. Sometimes having a thorough firebug in your employ was a handy thing.
Meanwhile, Theo looked up at the mayor. "I understand that the loss of your son has hit you very hard, and honestly I do remember him fondly, but that number isn't mine, so I have no idea with whom your son was having an affair. I apologize for not being able to provide more assistance," he said, and stood to guide the man out of his office.
Amos Diggory looked lost, but Theo couldn't take pity on him.
"You wouldn't tell me if it had been you." The gray haired politician sighed, wiping his glasses. "I could only hope," Diggory murmured, "that Cedric's lover wasn't the one who killed him, and would do something...extra judicial to handle the situation."
"Mr. Mayor," Theo breathed, "I am shocked that you would want vigilante justice for the murder of your son. I wouldn't admit that in mixed company if I was you. Perhaps you should take some time off for bereavement."
Theo pulled the door open and looked at Blaise leaning against the wall cleaning his nails.
"Zabini, please walk the mayor to his car. He was just leaving."
...
It was a few hours before dawn on Saturday morning. Only a few hours left until Narcissa's funeral, but Theo was used to functioning on little to no sleep. Maybe he'd take a bump or two of some variety of stay awake. It wasn't like he didn't have a wide selection.
Adrian was made to wait outside as he looked through the apartment for things to keep. The shoebox with the polaroids that Cedric liked Theo to take came with him, even though Theo knew it was stupid and he ought to burn them. But one look at Cedric's blissed out face as Theo's cock filled him and Theo snapped the pic from above, his cock and thighs the only parts of him visible had him rescuing the box from the imminent destruction. He found a forgotten set of Cedric's cufflinks and a tie pin in the bathroom; they went into the box as well.
He laid in their bed one last time and stared at the ceiling and was horrified to feel hot tears running down his cheeks as the fact that he would never see Cedric again settled into him. One last look over the apartment and he wiped his face on one of the ridiculous "His and His" hand towels that Cedric had bought. The towel went into the box as well.
Theo left the sex toys and the restraints. He didn't want to use things he had used with Cedric on Draco and Hermione. He didn't want to bring the sorrow that he felt now into the relationship he was nurturing into fruition.
As he walked down the stairs with the shoe box under his arm, he could smell the accelerants that Adrian had poured all over the auto shop.
"Give me five, boss, I just need to add some things upstairs." Adrian smiled as he took the stairs two at a time with a small package in his arms.
Theo rolled his eyes at being called boss, but waited patiently by the car while Adrian rigged the explosives that would destroy every trace of a thousand afternoons and late nights that Theo had spent with Cedric in his arms, under him, covered in his cum, moaning into his mouth.
He wouldn't cry again. He simply refused.
Adrian came out grinning.
"Come on, we aren't staying to watch," Theo stated, daring Adrian to argue. Adrian would love to watch his handiwork, but it wasn't something Theo felt up to.
As Adrian pulled down the road away from the building, two blasts rocked the air. The fiery inferno rose behind them and Theo forced himself not to look as the past was incinerated except for the small box on the seat next to him.
Putting a special playroom into Nott Castle would be a good distraction from the destruction of his sex apartment. He'd build it himself, something to keep his hands busy and to push all these uncomfortable emotions out of his mind.
One of his father's favorite Armenian philosophers came to his mind unbidden.
Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.
Draco and Hermione were the possibility of life after Cedric's death and Theo needed to make that possibility his reality. At this point, there was simply no other option. Whoever killed Cedric would pay with their life and Theo's life would continue on.
As it always had to.
...
Endnote: Quote was from Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949) fully Georgei Ivanovich Gurdjieff, was a Greco-Armenian spiritual leader and occultist.
